THE  LIBRARY 

OF 
THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 
LOS  ANGELES 


PARSIVAL 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

KJEW   YORK   •   BOSTON   •    CHICAGO    •    DALLAS 
ATLANTA    •    SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON    •    BOMBAY    •   CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


PARSIVAL 


BY 
GERHARD  HAUPTMANN 


AUTHORIZED   TRANSLATION 
BY 

OAKLEY  WILLIAMS 


Niw  f  nrk 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
I9IS 

All  rights  resetted 


COPYRIGHT,  1915 

BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  March,  1915. 


College 
Library 

TT 


PARSIVAL 


1157147 


PARSIVAL 


ARSIVAL'S  mother's  name  was 
Heartache.  I  should  hate  to  make 
anyone  feel  sad,  but  I  believe  we 
might  call  every  mother,  or  at  any 
rate,  very,  very  many  mothers  by  this  name. 
What  Heartache's  other  name  was,  and  of  what 
stock  she  came,  we  do  not  know.  Some  people 
say  that  her  family  was  of  knightly  degree,  others 
speak  of  her  as  a  peasant  woman,  so  Parsival 
in  his  youth,  would  have  then  been  nothing 
more  than  a  common  country  lad.  Of  whatever 
stock  he  might  be,  Parsival  himself  knew  noth- 
ing about  it,  and  his  mother,  who  may  well  have 
known,  never  said  a  word  to  him  on  the  matter. 
Her  name  was  not  Heartache  for  nothing. 

Parsival's  early  childhood  was  very  happy, 
for  Heartache  lived  in  a  little  log  hut,  hidden 


2  Parsival 

deep  in  the  solitude  of  the  woods:  a  hut  that 
Heaven  knows  who  had  built  for  her.  Maybe 
Heartache  herself  had  built  it,  for  she  was  deft 
in  handling  not  only  the  spade  and  hoe,  but  the 
axe  as  well,  and,  furthermore,  Parsival  had 
never  set  eyes  on  human  being  other  than  her. 
"There  is  no  work  Heartache  shirks,"  was  a 
favourite  adage  of  hers. 

Parsival  was  very  fond  of  his  mother,  and  was, 
as  I  have  said,  very  happy  under  her  care,  al- 
though she  was  not  gay  and  was  never  able  to 
laugh  whole-heartedly,  but  at  best  force  a 
painful  smile  to  her  lips.  The  merry,  sturdy 
boy  gave  it  no  further  thought;  he  enjoyed  his 
meals,  felt  safe  and  snug  when  his  mother  had 
tucked  him  up  in  bed,  and  in  the  day-time  made 
the  little  herb  and  flower  garden  round  about 
the  house,  the  forest  and  green  solitude  all 
around  his  splendid  playground. 

Parsival  passed  the  first  twelve  or  thirteen, 
or  maybe,  even  fourteen  years  of  his  life  in  the 
games  of  childhood.  Every  child  knows  what 
games  mean,  and  that  they  are  just  about  the 
most  precious  thing  in  the  world.  As  for  the 


Parsival  3 

grown-ups,  many  of  them  have,  I  am  sorry  to 
say,  become  wholly  unknowledgeable  in  this 
matter.  Now  and  then,  one  or  other  of  the 
grown-ups  who  is  able  to  value  games  at  their 
proper  worth,  has  troubled  his  head  about  the 
deeper  meaning  of  play;  it  is  an  emprise  which 
no  one  lays  upon  us,  and  no  one  constrains, 
which  is  devoid  of  sordid  profit,  and,  perhaps  for 
this  very  reason,  is  pure  joy  all  through. 

Parsival  was  a  strong  lad.  He  revelled  in  the 
sunshine,  in  the  flowers  of  the  forest,  in  the 
birds,  in  climbing  trees,  in  the  oak  apples,  in 
the  wood-pigeons'  nests,  in  the  snow,  in  the 
storm,  not  to  forget  the  wild  beasts,  great  and 
small,  which  dwelt  in  the  forest,  and  which, 
from  his  ninth  and  tenth  year  onwards,  he 
began  to  hunt  with  craft  and  courage.  Traffic 
with  nature  after  this  fashion  is  like  to  make 
your  blood  clean,  your  eye  steady  and  far-seeing, 
your  bones  firm  and  the  muscles  of  your  body 
tough.  Therefore  it  was  as  well  that  no  rude 
louts  from  the  towns,  who  might  have  made 
game  of  him,  crossed  his  path,  for  he  would 
have  man-handled  them  terribly. 


4  Parsival 

It  would  not  have  been  hard  to  make  game  of 
him  on  several  counts.  Whether  it  had  been  of 
his  mother,  Heartache's  intent,  or  whether 
circumstances  had  brought  it  about  in  her 
despite,  the  boy  knew  nothing  of  God  nor  of  the 
Devil,  and,  if  he  had  given  the  matter  a  thought 
at  all,  he  would  have  taken  it  for  granted  that 
no  human  beings  other  than  Heartache  and 
himself,  lived  in  the  world,  and  that,  starting 
from  the  log  hut,  the  world  would  come  to  an 
end  a  few  bow-shots  away  in  every  direction. 
But,  as  you  know,  this  is  not  the  case.  The  world 
is  exceeding  wide-spread,  and  is  peopled  by  a 
multitude  of  folk,  who  are  split  up  into  nations, 
each  one  of  which  speaks  its  own  proper  tongue, 
and  also  differs  from  others  in  many  ways.  For 
these,  and  other  reasons,  the  lad  Parsival  might 
have  passed  for  a  dunce,  even  among  boys  of 
his  own  age,  although  his  stupidness  was,  in 
fact,  only  lack  of  experience. 

He  would,  maybe,  have  taken  a  bearded  man 
that  might  have  crossed  his  path,  for  a  danger- 
ous wild  animal;  he  would  have  held  a  bishop 
in  his  cope  for  something  kin  to  a  big  strange 


Parsival  5 

bird,  but  he  would  not  have  run  away,  but  would 
have  attacked  them,  man  and  bishop  alike, 
fiercely,  for  his  mother  had  taught  him  the  use 
of  the  bow  and  arrow,  and  had  also  given  him  a 
hatchet,  that  might  at  need  serve  for  a  battle- 
axe,  to  hang  in  his  belt.  Strangely  enough,  his 
mother  taught  Parsival  that  all  Nature  was 
their  foe,  and  that  you  could  only  have  and  hold 
the  commonest  things,  if  you  took  and  kept 
them  by  stress  of  arms. 

The  boy  would,  it  is  true,  have  had  some  such 
feeling  in  his  blood,  even  if  his  mother  had  not 
taught  it  to  him  of  intent. 

Parsival,  who  could  neither  read  nor  write, 
and  to  whose  eyes  a  boundary  stone  in  the  forest 
and,  let  us  say,  a  book,  would  have  been  very 
much  the  same  thing,  whom  children  learning 
their  A,  B,  C,  in  the  lowest  form  would  have 
put  to  confusion,  was  broad  of  chest,  had  the 
far-seeing  eye  of  a  bird  of  prey,  and  the  delight 
in  battle  and  the  courage  of  a  lion.  With  it  all 
he  was  like  a  fox  in  the  acuteness  of  his  hearing 
and  keenness  of  his  scent.  Slipping  through  the 
forest  of  nights,  nothing  escaped  him.  He  knew 


6  Parsival 

the  meaning  of  every  sound  long  before  it  would 
have  been  within  the  range  of  the  ordinary 
human  ear.  A  no  less  degree  of  fear  kept  pace 
with  his  lusty  courage,  that  fear  which  is  com- 
mon to  the  strongest  wild  animals  and  safeguards 
them  from  being  surprised,  unawares  and  de- 
fenceless, by  a  foe.  So  Parsival  was  ever  ready 
for  the  fray,  and  in  the  art  of  throwing  his  axe 
or  putting  it  to  other  account,  and  of  sending 
his  arrow  at  a  hundred  paces  or  more  to  the  pre- 
cise mark  he  meant  to  hit,  there  was  none  to 
match  him;  not  even  a  real  hero,  let  alone  a  boy 
learning  his  A,  B,  C,  in  the  lowest  form  of  his 
school. 


n 


EARTACHE  was  by  nature,  and  tak- 


ing her  all  in  all,  a  woman  of  the  sort 
that  is  sparing  of  words  and  keeps  her 
own  counsel.  Parsival  had  no  more 
seen  her  laugh  than  he  had  seen  her  weep.  She 
was  never  wont  to  display  marked  tenderness 
towards  the  boy,  but  he  could  do  nothing  rash 
without  her  eye  watching  and  safeguarding  him. 
This  is  what  happened  when,  hi  his  guilelessness, 
he  was  about  to  pick  up  a  thick,  poisonous  snake, 
when  he  was  on  the  point  of  jumping  into  the 
flames  of  a  forest  fire,  for,  with  their  crackling 
and  spluttering,  he  took  them  for  wild  beasts, 
licking  their  greedy  jaws,  and  was  about  to  fight 
them  with  his  axe.  It  would  be  no  light  matter 
to  record  all  the  moments  of  danger  when  the 
inexperience  of  a  child  put  Parsival  in  jeopardy 
and  his  mother  guarded  and  saved  his  life. 

One  day,  when  a  terrible  storm  was  raging 
through  the  forest,  and,  tearing  them  up  by 

7 


8  Parsival 

the  roots,  was  over-throwing  many  an  old  giant 
of  the  woods  in  the  clearing  where  Heartache's 
log  hut  stood,  Parsival  had  stayed  out  hunting 
longer  than  was  his  wont.  Amid  the  wild  up- 
heaval and  the  clash  of  tree-tops  and  tree  trunks, 
he  had  followed  the  course  of  a  swollen  mountain 
torrent  up-stream  and  had  gained  heights  he 
had  not  hitherto  climbed,  even  with  his  mother's 
goats.  This  time  neither  wolf  nor  elk  nor  bear 
had  drawn  him  on;  it  was  rather  the  clouds 
chasing  across  the  sky,  the  moist,  heady,  raging 
air,  and,  above  all  these,  a  general  feeling  of  an 
uncertain  something  that,  like  stirred  and  storm- 
tossed  Nature,  was  drawing  him  upwards  and 
onwards.  The  mountain  torrent  that  rushed 
foaming  to  meet  him  in  headlong  bounds  and 
with  deafening  din,  the  maddened  air,  that, 
shrieking  and  howling,  snapped  the  trees  and 
hurled  them  across  the  watercourse,  seemed  to 
brave  him  to  kindred  unrestraint.  Truth  to 
tell,  a  feeling  of  savagery  took  possession  of 
him,  so  that  he  shouted  at  the  top  of  his  voice, 
and,  in  an  access  of  strength,  in  very  fact 
set  about  uprooting  trees.  He  snapped  their 


Parsival  g 

stems,  twisted  them  off  and  flung  them  into  the 
rushing  water.  Parsival  was  anything  rather 
than  wantonly  malignant,  but  forces  that  have 
not  had  time  to  become  creative,  are  often  per- 
force bound  to  find  vent  in  destruction,  and 
furthermore,  in  the  great  divine  scheme  of  crea- 
tion, even  destructive  forces  are  creative. 

When  he  had  gained  the  highest  peak  of  a 
ridge  of  rock  above  the  tree  line,  something 
moved  the  boy,  with  an  almost  irresistible  long- 
ing, to  go  down  into  the  unknown  on  the  further 
side,  and  he  would,  without  a  doubt,  have  pushed 
on,  and  for  the  first  time  have  spent  the  night 
beyond  his  mother's  roof,  had  not,  of  a  sudden, 
a  cry  out  of  the  mist,  stealing  over  the  mountain 
ridge,  startled  him  and  moved  him  to  turn  back 
homewards.  He  had  already  turned  his  steps 
back,  when  he  quieted  his  fears  with  the  explana- 
tion that  he  had  suffered  himself  to  be  tricked 
by  the  cry  of  some  solitary  bird  of  prey.  None 
the  less  he  had  heard,  quite  clearly  and  dis- 
tinctly, the  word  "Heartache"  in  the  air. 

When  Parsival  came  home  this  time,  his 
mother's  manner  was  strange.  She  said,  it  is 


io  Parsival 

true,  never  a  word  but  the  lad,  glancing  at  her 
askance  with  a  puzzled  sense  of  guilt,  could  not 
help  marking  how  drops  of  dew  were  brimming 
'over  the  rims  of  her  eyes  and  for  a  long  time, 
one  after  the  other,  flowed  down  and,  in  very 
fact,  bathed  his  mother's  grave  and  hard  face. 
What  was  it?  What  did  it  mean?  It  was  some- 
thing new,  something  passing  his  understand- 
ing. But  it  was  further  beyond  his  understand- 
ing still  when  Parsival  felt  his  own  cheeks  bathed 
in  tears  and,  touching  his  own  eye  with  his 
finger,  became  aware  that  it  too  had  been  turned 
into  a  well  of  salty  water.  "Yesterday,"  some- 
thing within  him  said,  "you  were  still  stone  all 
through:  to-day  you  have  been  melted." 

On  the  morrow  Heartache  said  to  Parsival, 
"You  know  the  herbs  that  are  poisonous,  and 
you  know  the  snakes.  I  have  taught  you  to  trap 
the  wild  beasts  of  the  forest  in  snares  and  gins 
and  to  overcome  them  with  the  spear  or  with  the 
arrow.  But  all  these  foes  are  of  no  account; 
there  are  men." 

And  for  the  first  time  Heartache  now  began 
to  tell  her  son  how  the  races  of  mankind  are 


Parsival  n 

spread  over  the  surface  of  the  earth,  like  the 
sand  of  the  seashore,  and  how  neither  the  beasts 
of  the  field  nor  the  human  race  has  any  other 
foe  that  is  as  terrible  as  man.  The  fight  against 
the  beasts  was,  she  said,  child's  play.  The 
cruelty  of  the  brute  was,  as  against  the  high 
art  of  human  cruelty,  mercy.  In  the  human 
being,  she  said,  dwelt  many  qualities  far  above 
the  brute:  others,  far  lower  than  those  of  any 
beast.  So  there  was  no  brute,  only  human, 
treachery. 

In  this  fashion  Heartache  never  ceased  to 
instill,  drop  by  drop  the  poisonous  and  poisoned 
matter,  as  it  were,  of  an  old  hidden  wound  into 
the  child's  pure  soul.  The  conclusion  of  her 
discourse  was,  "Stay  with  me:  shun  the  world 
of  men." 


ra 


ENCEFORWARD  Heartache's  son 
could  not  go  on  spending  his  days,  as 
heretofore,  in  thoughtless  happiness. 
He  had  learned  how  a  very  great 
multitude  of  folk,  besides  his  mother  and  himself, 
fashioned  in  their  likeness,  were  in  the  world, 
and  how  he  must  needs  hold  them  for  his  worst 
foes.  And,  had  they  not,  in  very  truth,  dealt 
his  mother  that  unhealed  hurt  of  which  he  had 
now  for  the  first  time  become  aware?  What  else 
could  have  wrung  those  tears  from  his  mother, 
tears  that  had  even  melted  his  hardness,  and  in 
a  pang  of  pity,  beyond  his  understanding,  had 
made  his  eyes  overflow?  When  he  pondered  on 
the  misdeeds  of  men  against  his  mother,  and 
of  all  the  other  things  his  mother  had  told  him 
concerning  them,  he  felt  a  hatred  against  them 
that  at  times  rose  to  a  mad  lust  for  the  destruc- 
tion of  all  who  bore  the  name  of  man,  even  of 
himself  among  them.  "Wherefor,  if  men  be  no 

12 


Parsival  13 

better,  have  they  being  at  all,  and  wherefor  am  I, 
who  am  nothing  better  than  a  man,  alive?  " 

Once  Parsival  had  tangled  himself  in  such 
thoughts  as  these,  he  longed  for  a  weapon  that 
might  prove  apter  to  the  hand  and  more  terrible 
than  his  axe — for  a  weapon  made  to  rush  into 
the  world  to  better  purpose  and  to  avenge  his 
mother  on  men. 

Spring,  summer,  autumn,  winter  now  came 
round  again.  Spring  returned  again  and  Parsival 
did  not  cease  to  brood  on  his  mother's  hurt  be- 
yond all  healing  and  on  the  race  of  men,  whose 
existence,  for  one  cause  or  another,  in  part  be- 
cause of  his  hate,  in  part  because  of  new,  un- 
known reasons,  drew  him  more  and  more.  The 
craving  to  set  forth  among  men  grew  in  him 
with  irresistible  and  painful  force,  and  neither 
the  song  of  the  birds,  nor  his  hunting  and  fishing, 
availed  to  turn  his  thoughts  from  the  hot  long- 
ing to  cross  the  mountain  ridge,  beyond  that 
parting  of  the  ways,  where  the  bird  of  prey's  cry 
of  "Heartache"  had  led  him  to  turn  back.  The 
poor  lad  could  not  put  the  thought  away,  al- 
though it  seemed  to  him  quite  impossible  to 


14  Parsival 

leave  his  ageing  mother,  whose  sole  friend  and 
guard  he  was,  behind  in  the  wilderness  alone. 

It  was  a  very  wholesome  and  natural  force 
that  was  drawing  Parsival  into  the  outside 
world,  and  yet  the  boy  felt  conscious  of  guilt,  and 
doubly  guilty  at  the  sight  of  his  mother.  How 
sorrowful  was  her  look,  a  look  that  seemed  to 
probe  him  to  the  innermost  recesses  of  his  soul! 

And  now  I  have  to  tell  of  a  marvel. 

It  is  a  strange  happening,  which,  none  the  less, 
is  always  being  proved  true  anew:  that  every 
man's  hand  must  needs,  in  due  season,  find  that 
one  particular  weapon  which  is  serviceable  and 
proper  to  it  as  none  other  can  be.  The  marvel 
that  occurs  in  such  cases,  always  is  and  remains 
alike  great,  even  if  the  manner  whereby  the 
right  hand  is,  at  the  right  time,  led  to  grasp  the 
right  weapon,  seems  to  us  most  natural  and  a 
matter  of  course. 

In  the  case  of  the  lad  Parsival,  however,  it 
was,  judged  by  its  outward  happening  alone, 
out  of  the  ordinary  and  wonderful.  He  was 
passing  by  just  as,  on  the  margin  of  a  mountain 
lake,  a  falcon  struck  a  dove  which  fell  to  the 


Parsival  15 

ground,  ravelled  up  into  a  ball  with  the  bird  of 
prey.  After  the  boy's  bow-string  had  shrilled 
and  a  lucky  shot  had  pierced  the  falcon's  breast, 
the  archer  marked  that  the  dove  was  still  alive. 
It  was  lying  on  the  ground  beating  its  wings. 
There  is  no  gainsaying  a  hunter's  trade  is  cruel, 
yet,  it  can  be  said  that  the  true  hunter,  though 
he  does,  indeed,  practise  the  art  of  killing,  is, 
apart  from  this,  inclined  to  pity  and  by  no  means 
cruel.  Heartache's  son  drew  near,  intent  to 
put  the  bleeding  dove  out  of  its  misery.  But  for 
some  reason  or  other  he  stayed  his  hand  this 
time  from  killing  the  little  bird  with  a  turn  of 
his  wrist,  and  so  its  life  was  spared.  "Live  or 
die,"  said  the  hunter  aloud,  picking  up  his 
bleeding  quarry  and  cradling  it  carefully  in  the 
crook  of  his  arm,  "the  issue  lay  with  my  arrow: 
it  has  proved  your  saviour.  I  will  not  be  more 
cruel  than  my  unfeeling  tool." 

"The  issue  lay  with  my  arrow,"  was  what 
Parsival  said,  but  deep  within  him  a  shudder 
he  could  not  understand  shook  him;  it  was  as 
if  the  true  issue  here  had  lain  with  some  all- 
present  unseen  Power,  not  with  him  or  with  his 


i6  Parsival 

arrow.  As  if  under  some  magic  spell,  he  had  per- 
force to  draw  water  from  the  low  lying  level  of 
the  lake,  for  the  dove,  that  drank  it  eagerly, 
to  bathe  its  hurts,  and  to  refresh  it  by  laving  it 
in  the  cool  waters  of  the  lake. 

Having  done  this  Parsival  heard  the  call  of  a 
wild  dove  from  a  little  eyot,  overgrown  with 
beech  trees,  where  of  himself  he  would  have 
guessed  the  nest,  whence  the  stricken  dove 
would  have  come,  to  be.  And  straightway,  as 
if  at  the  behest  of  a  bidding  beyond  dispute,  he 
had  plunged  into  the  deep  water  up  to  his  arm- 
pits to  reach  the  island,  intent  to  restore  the 
dove  to  the  nest  of  its  forsaken,  cooing  mate. 
He  succeeded  in  making  land,  and,  since  he 
was  able  to  climb  the  tallest  tree  as  easily  as  the 
brown  bear,  the  poor  little  bird,  flooding  a  clutch 
of  speckled  little  eggs  with  her  blood,  was  soon 
restored  to  her  downy  nest.  When  Parsival  had 
climbed  down  from  the  branches  of  this  thou- 
sand year  old  beech  tree,  he  found  a  sword. 
A  pigeon-blood  ruby,  gleaming  in  the  depths  of 
the  hollow  trunk,  led  the  boy  to  its  discovery. 
He  snatched  at  it  because  he  maybe  took  the 


Parsival  17 

jewel  for  the  eye  of  a  woodland  owl,  but  forth- 
with became  aware  that  it  was  inset  into  a 
bronze  hilt  that  ran  out  into  a  bare  and  broad 
blade.  Although  he  had  hitherto  never  seen  a 
sword,  as  soon  as  he  drew  it  clear  in  his  hands, 
he  knew  what  it  meant  and  what  its  purport  was, 
and  also  that,  with  this  flashing  trove  in  his 
hand,  there  was  now  no  further  need  to  delay  his 
setting  forth  into  the  world. 


IV 

N  the  morrow,  when,  as  of  wont  and 
use,  Parsival  awoke  on  his  couch  of 
sweet-smelling  moss  in  his  mother's 
log  hut,  and  saw  her  busy  at  the 
hearth,  he  sprang  to  his  feet  and  told  her  that 
he  must  needs  avenge  her  on  the  world  and  on 
the  race  of  men.  In  her  first  dismay  and  in  her 
dread  of  losing  him,  she,  after  the  manner  of 
many  a  mother,  said  something  that  served,  as 
nothing  else  could  have,  to  fire  his  purpose 
doubly  into  flame.  He  was,  she  said,  unarmed 
and  unarmoured.  Then  the  boy  could  forbear 
no  longer,  though  he  had  resolved  to  keep  the 
trove  of  the  sword  secret  from  his  mother.  With 
pride  and  victory  in  his  eye  he  drew  the  broad, 
gleaming  weapon  from  under  the  skins  of  his  bed. 
"I  must  needs  leave  you,  Mother,"  he  said, 
"because  I  can  know  no  peace  as  long  as  I  have 
not  found  out  and  punished  the  man  who  did 
you  the  hurt  that  will  not  heal." 

18 


Parsiml  19 

Heartache  made  answer,  weeping: 

"That  hurt  was  not  to  the  death.  If  you  for- 
sake me,  you  will  do  me  a  far  greater  hurt  which 
will  be  unto  death  indeed.  But  if  you  should 
fall  in  with,  and  punish  the  man  at  whose  door 
lie  all  the  deepest  sorrows  of  my  lonely  life,  you 
would,  in  lieu  of  one,  be  putting  me  to  ten  tor- 
turing, long-drawn  deaths." 

But  Parsival  took  up  his  sword,  passed  out 
across  the  glade,  set  his  teeth,  and  did  not 
turn  back  once  when  he  heard  his  mother 
weeping  aloud  and  pitifully  for  him  to  come 
back. 

He  roamed  at  a  venture  for  several  days.  No 
voice  had  called  its  warning  "Heartache"  on 
the  mountain  ridge  where  he  had  turned  back 
the  first  time.  Bravely  and  stoutly  as  he  pressed 
on,  the  world  was  unending,  and  he  could  not 
forbear  wondering  why  he  did  not  come  to  the 
edge  of  it.  If,  in  his  own  despite,  the  thought  of 
his  forsaken  mother  bade  fair  to  constrain  him 
to  turn  back,  he  quieted  heart  and  conscience  by 
telling  himself  over  and  over  again  that  he  needs 
must  avenge  his  mother  on  the  race  of  men,  and, 


2O  Parswal 

above  all,  on  him  that  had  done  her  so  great 
a  wrong.  By  this  time  he  had  been  three  days 
afoot,  but  in  the  meantime,  save  for  his  own  re- 
flection in  the  water,  had  not  set  eyes  on  any 
human  being. 

Of  a  certainty,  he  thought,  so  soon  as  the  first 
of  them  chances  to  cross  my  path,  we  shall  come 
to  blows  forthwith.  As  he  looked  forward,  de- 
light of  battle  mingled  with  his  hatred  of  his 
kind.  But  it  was  not  the  thought  of  vengeance 
alone,  nor  the  delight  of  battle  alone,  but  another 
joy  was  astir  in  this  hope  of  chancing  upon  men. 
It  was  a  delight  that  disquieted  him,  and  made 
him,  as  it  were,  flush  red  in  spirit  for  shame  of  his 
far-off  mother. 

On  the  late  afternoon  of  the  third  day  of  his 
wanderings,  the  lad  had  reached  the  edge  of  the 
forest,  and,  far  off  on  a  flower-strewn  meadow, 
beheld  a  tent  of  fair  purple  silk.  Seeing  that  he 
had  grown  up,  though  in  outward  guise  of  great 
strength  and  of  gentle  birth,  with  a  country  lad's 
simple  mind  and  that  fear  was  a  stranger  to  him, 
he  made  not  the  least  ado  in  passing  within  the 
tent. 


Parsival  21 

Here  it  was  that  he  saw  the  first  of  the  human 
race. 

Here,  God  wot,  there  was  assuredly  no  work 
for  the  sword  in  his  hand,  or  for  the  thought  of 
vengeance  for  Heartache.  For  what  met  his 
eyes  was — to  blurt  it  out — a  fair,  peaceful- 
seeming  maid.  Parsival  was  at  once  aware  that 
he  had  to  do,  not  with  one  of  his  own  kind,  but 
with  a  much  younger  sister  of  his  mother.  There 
was  no  room  to  doubt  it,  if  only  because  the 
young  woman-thing  was  shedding  floods  of 
Heartache's  tears.  The  maid  was  dismayed  at 
the  sight  of  the  rough  man  of  the  woods,  but 
something  in  his  look  gave  her  confidence.  She 
did  not  know  that  once  again,  as  once  before 
at  the  sight  of  his  mother's  tears,  the  soul  of  the 
young  adventurer  had  melted  under  her  tears. 
He  gave  her  greeting  and  his  first  words  were  to 
ask  who  was  the  man  that  had  done  her  secret 
hurt.  Then  she  wept  the  more  loudly,  and  amid 
her  sobs  began  to  speak  and  Parsival  listened  to 
her  whole  story. 

She  had,  he  heard,  been  carried  off  by  a  cruel 
man,  a  robber  Knight,  although  she  had  plighted 


22  Parsival 

her  troth  to  a  young  gallant,  who  had  been  not 
her  delight  alone,  but  the  joy  of  her  old  father 
and  mother  to  boot.  The  rude  and  hateful  man, 
who,  in  the  h'sts  of  Knighthood,  bore  the  name 
of  the  Proud  Knight  of  the  Heath,  was  carrying 
her  away  against  her  will  and  had  brought  every 
attempt  to  set  her  free  to  nought.  He  had  even 
slain  her  betrothed  in  single  combat. 

"Where  is  this  proud  Lord  of  the  Heath?" 
asked  Parsival,  "for  he  is  the  very  quarry  I  am 
seeking  above  all  other." 

Not  long  afterwards  the  Proud  Knight,  on 
his  black  charger,  came  sweeping  over  the 
heath.  He  was  in  truth  a  terrible  man,  such  as 
Parsival  had  pictured  him  in  his  imagining.  His 
beard  was  black,  it  hung  down  to  his  middle  and 
was  twisted  into  his  sword  belt.  Under  his  black 
eyebrows,  flashed  black  eyes  full  of  grim  harsh- 
ness and  of  proud  disdain,  that  death  alone 
could  quench.  He  reined  in  his  horse,  which 
neighed  loud,  whereat  helmet,  spurs  and  chain 
mail  clashed  and  clanged  again.  When  the 
Proud  Knight  opened  his  lips,  only  these  wrath- 
ful words  escaped  the  hedge  of  his  strong 


Parsival  23 

ivory  teeth,  "Peasant  lout,  what  wouldst  thou 
here?" 

"Just  such  a  one  as  thou,"  quoth  Parsival, 
that  he  might  avenge  Heartache  on  him.  And, 
as  if  two  lions  in  one,  the  lad  leapt  at  the  knight. 

The  fight  was  hot,  but  the  victory  at  the  last 
fell  to  Parsival.  The  Proud  Knight  lay  slain  on 
the  edge  of  the  forest.  He  lay  dyeing  the  grass 
and  the  daisies  red  in  his  ebbing  blood.  When 
Parsival  beheld  the  knight,  hacked  by  his  sword, 
lying  in  his  blood  on  this  wise,  a  shudder  shook 
him  for  the  work  he  had  done.  He  told  himself 
that  he  had  avenged  Heartache.  But  he  was 
fain  not  to  see  the  maid,  whom  he  had  freed 
from  her  persecutor  again.  He  therefore  struck 
back  into  the  woods. 


OR  a  few  days  after  his  first  emprise, 
Parsival  maybe  roamed  the  woods, 
until  the  longing  to  return  home  to 
Heartache  overcame  him. 
The  spirit  of  the  black  dead  knight  lay  upon 
him  like  an  overwhelming  burden,  and  it  seemed 
to  him  as  if  only  on  his  mother's  breast,  could  he 
shake  it  off.  His  delight  in  battle  had  passed, 
his  eager,  headstrong  craving  for  wayfaring  had 
flickered  out  in  aimless  wandering.  But  now, 
after  his  resolve  to  take  flight  back  to  his  mother's 
heart  had  come  to  the  sticking  point,  new  life 
poured  in  upon  him.  There  he  would  win  back 
the  old,  guiltless,  and  careless  days. 

He  was  running  as  he  had  never  run  before. 
It  seemed  to  him  as  if  he  were  only  coming  back 
belated  from  his  day's  hunting.  He  had,  maybe, 
fallen  asleep  and  had  had  a  troublous  dream, 
but,  at  bottom,  void  of  meaning.  What  his 
mother  had  said  came  back  to  him  now,  "You 
24 


Parsival  25 

will,  if  you  go,  do  me  a  far  greater  hurt  than 
that  which  the  unknown  man  has  dealt  me." 

"Mother,"  he  had  it  in  his  mind  to  say,  as 
soon  as,  with  merry  greeting,  he  had  passed  into 
the  dear  log  hut  again,  "Mother,  I  have  sinned 
in  going  away  from  you.  I  shall  stay  with  you 
now  and  for  ever." 

Then  his  mother,  he  told  himself,  would  stroke 
his  cheek  and  would  smile  away  the  dread  lurk- 
ing in  the  deepest  depths  of  his  being  like  some 
evil  blight,  the  dread  fraught  with  the  remem- 
brance of  what  other  things  his  mother  had  said 
to  him  at  their  leave  taking.  These  were  her 
words,  "But  if  you  were  to  fall  in  with  and  to 
punish  the  man  at  whose  door  lie  the  deepest 
sorrows  of  my  lonely  life,  you  would,  in  lieu 
of  one,  be  putting  me  to  ten  torturing  long-drawn 
deaths." 

No!  the  Proud  Knight  of  the  Heath  had  of  a 
surety  not  been  that  man. 

Parsival  had  crossed  the  border  heights,  and 
had  kissed  the  stones  for  joy  where  Heartache's 
call  from  the  air  had  before  constrained  him  to 
turn  back.  He  raced  joyously  down  the  slopes 


26  Parsival 

and  foothills,  with  the  bounds  of  a  mountain 
deer.  Here  every  tree,  every  blade  of  grass, 
every  fern,  every  woodland  flower,  seemed  to 
him  to  be  already  thriving  the  better  in  his 
mother's  lap  and  under  Heartache's  loving  hand. 
He  reached  the  lake,  where  hardly  a  week  before 
he  had  saved  the  dove  from  the  hawk,  and  when 
he  climbed  the  tree  in  whose  branches  he  had 
found  the  wild  dove's  nest,  he  heard  the  twitter 
of  fledglings,  and  to  his  delight  saw  the  parent 
birds  flitting  safe  and  sound,  round  a  nest  full 
of  hungry  nestlings.  He  took  his  sword  and 
lowered  it  back  again  deep  into  the  hollow  of 
the  tree. 

After  doing  this,  he  felt  of  a  sudden  far  more 
light  of  heart.  He  knew  that  in  a  few  hundred 
paces,  he  would,  in  accord  with  his  reckoning, 
reach  the  log  hut  he  henceforward  was  resolved 
never  to  leave  again. 

Then  of  a  sudden,  he  became  aware  of  the 
figure  of  a  man,  whom  he  could  see  through  the 
branches  of  the  tree,  from  above,  and  who  was 
standing,  in  a  boat,  not  far  from  the  shore  of 
the  lake,  with  rod  and  line. 


Parsival  27 

Heartache's  son  had  never,  as  we  know,  be- 
held a  human  being  in  this  spot.  He  did  not 
therefore  trust  his  eyes,  but  climbed  down  the 
branches  of  the  tree  to  the  ground  and  hailed 
the  strange  fisherman  with  a  shout. 

The  fisherman,  without  allowing  himself  to 
be  distracted  from  his  pursuit,  seemed  to  hold 
Parsival  for  some  strayed  traveller,  who  had 
lost  his  way,  and  wished  to  be  set  on  the  right 
road.  He,  therefore,  answering  the  hail  with  a 
question,  asked  how  Parsival  chanced  to  be  in 
these  parts  and  whither  he  wished  to  fare. 

"Well-a-day,  whither  art  thou  faring?  And 
how  comes  it  thou  chancest  in  these  parts?" 

Parsival  made  answer.  "As  for  me,  thou 
shouldst  know  that  forest  and  lake  and  every- 
thing round  about  belong  to  my  mother,  belong 
to  Heartache." 

"The  world  belongs  to  Heartache,"  quoth  the 
fisherman,  throwing  his  line  out  so  that  the  lure 
fell  into  water  not  very  far  away  from  the  lad. 
He  said,  a  second  time,  "The  world  belongs  to 
Heartache,  Parsival." 

"How  comes  it  that  thou  knowest  me?" 


28  Parsival 

"That  I  shall  not  tell,"  the  fisherman  made 
answer. 

"Hast  caught  many  fish?"  Parsival  went  on, 
more  for  the  sake  of  saying  something  because 
he  felt  ill  at  ease  in  the  man's  strange  company. 

"I  am  in  truth  only  waiting  for  one  single  fish, 
and  I  long  for  nothing  more  earnestly  than  that 
it  should  take  my  lure." 

"Then  go  on  waiting  till  thou  turn  black,"  said 
Parsival,  at  the  last,  with  a  freshet  of  youthful 
high  spirits.  "I  cannot  cut  time  to  waste  with 
thee,  for  my  mother  awaits  me." 

He  ran  away  and  in  a  short  time  had  reached 
the  glade  where  the  log  hut  stood,  but,  none  the 
less,  seen  from  some  way  off,  it  seemed  to  be  in 
some  wise  changed.  His  heart  was  beating  wildly, 
as,  with  halting  footsteps,  he  drew  near  the  old, 
well-loved  dwelling-place.  What  had  befallen? 
Parsival  fell  on  his  face  and  swooned  away. 

When  he  recovered  his  senses,  he  found  the 
fearsome  spectacle,  the  sight  of  which  had  struck 
him  like  a  blow  with  a  hammer,  unchanged. 
Heartache's  hut,  the  cradle  and  shelter  of  his 
young  life,  was  gutted  through  and  through  by 


Parsival  29 

fire.  Even  the  black  ashes  had  grown  cold,  and, 
as  he  raked  them  over,  showed  no  trace  of  heat. 
Where  was  Heartache?  Parsival  made  search 
through  the  forest  round  about  and  called  to  her 
at  the  top  of  his  voice. 

After  he  had  sought  his  mother  until  nightfall, 
but  to  no  purpose,  the  strange  fisherman,  with 
whom  he  had  bandied  words,  came  into  his  mind, 
and  the  thought  flashed  through  his  brain  that 
the  man  might  chance  to  be  able  to  give  him 
word  of  his  mother's  whereabouts.  Had  he  not, 
albeit,  in  some  spirit  of  mockery  maybe,  declared 
that  the  whole  world  belonged  to  Heartache? 

He  reached  the  lake  and  to  his  joy,  found  the 
fisherman  fishing  unconcerned,  although  the 
evening  was  already  drawing  towards  twilight, 
and  his  boat  had  drifted  rather  far  from  the  shore 
towards  the  middle  of  the  lake.  At  about  this 
hour,  the  mirror  of  the  lake  was  quite  black, 
only  in  its  depths  the  purple  battlements  of  a 
sunken  castle  seemed  to  glow  like  flame. 

"Fisherman  ahoy!"  shouted  Parsival.  With- 
out stroke  of  oar  or  turn  of  rudder,  the  boat,  as 
if  of  herself,  began  to  drift  towards  the  shore. 


30  Parsival 

Parsival's  voice  demanded  where  Heartache 
might  be,  and  the  fisherman,  who  even  now  kept 
his  eyes  fixed  on  his  line  alone,  made  answer 
somewhat  after  this  fashion: 

"Thou  wilt  have  travail  to  find  thy  mother 
again.  I  could  tell  thee  many  things  of  her  and 
of  her  lot  in  life,  but  my  mouth  is  sealed,  as  long 
as  I  have  not  caught  the  fish  on  which  all  turns. 
Nevertheless  follow,  I  bid  thee,  the  shores  of  the 
lake,  and  seek  the  place  where  the  great  river 
flows  in  to  it.  Wend  thy  way  up  stream  until 
thou  find  a  certain  castle  standing  alone,  knock 
at  the  gate  there  and  it  is  not  beyond  the  bounds 
of  what  may  be  that  thou  mayest  have  some 
tidings  of  thy  mother  from  its  inmates." 

In  his  grief  and  wrath  at  the  tangled  words, 
Parsival  almost  had  it  in  his  mind  to  leap  into 
the  fisherman's  boat  for  to  wrest  his  secret  from 
him  by  main  force.  His  grief  for  his  lost  mother 
knew  no  bounds,  and  he  did  not  know  how  he 
was  to  endure  his  longing  and  torment  for  her 
and  not  die.  But,  quite  of  a  sudden,  darkness 
fell  and  Parsival  at  the  instant  saw  no  more 
of  the  fisherman  and  his  boat. 


VI 


E  was  now  stumbling  on  blindly 
through  the  darkness,  because  there 
was  nothing  left  him  to  do,  if  he 
would  still  have  word  of  his  mother, 
than  to  seek  the  castle  of  which  the  fisherman  had 
spoken.  A  bitter  and  a  fearsome  night  it  was  that 
he  had  to  live  through.  He  was  astounded  how 
it  could  come  to  pass  that  a  man  such  as  he  could 
go  under  in  such  perplexity  of  distress.  When, 
the  thick  darkness  made  it,  ever  and  anon,  im- 
possible for  him  to  press  on,  he  more  times  than 
once  swung  from  the  terror  of  despair  to  fits  of 
Berserker  wrath  that  spent  themselves  with 
bleeding  fists  against  stones  and  tree  trunks. 

He  did  not,  be  sure,  cease  to  shout  Heartache's 
name  over  and  over  again  into  the  rustling  wil- 
derness of  the  woods,  whence,  ever  and  again,  a 
mournful  echo  gave  him  answer,  an  echo  that 
only  made  his  helplessness,  his  fears,  his  longing, 
and  in  the  end,  his  rage,  the  greater.  He  seemed, 
31 


32  Parsival 

in  his  own  eyes,  as  one  befooled,  as  one  tricked. 
They  had  tricked  him  of  the  most  precious  thing 
the  world  had  held  for  him,  but  where  to  look 
for  the  trickster,  for  the  cheat,  he  could  not 
tell.  He  went  so  far  as  to  challenge  the  air,  the 
night,  the  trees,  the  rocks,  the  waters,  and  the 
earth,  to  give  him  back  his  mother  on  pain  of 
his  everlasting  enmity. 

Toward  morning,  Parsival  became  aware  that 
he  was  wending  his  way  up  stream  on  the  banks 
of  a  somewhat  broad  river.  The  grey  dawn, 
heralding  the  sun,  disclosed  a  deep  valley  that, 
steep  and  rocky,  widened  out  or  narrowed  in 
on  either  shore  of  the  river  bed.  The  farther  he 
fared  the  more  foreign  the  landscape  became, 
and  had  he  not  been  stricken  to  the  soul,  he 
would,  at  the  last,  have  believed  himself  in 
Paradise. 

Strange  plants,  strange  flowers,  trees  and 
grasses  encompassed  him  round  about.  Great 
cockatoos  and  other  parrots  flitted  in  smaller 
or  larger  flocks,  speaking  with  human  tongues, 
above  the  clear  and  green  waters  of  the  hurry- 
ing river.  They  hovered  above  his  head  and 


Parswal  33 

it  seemed  to  him  as  though  they  were  giving 
him  greeting.  Once  he  thought  he  heard  one 
say: 

"Boy  Parsival,  thy  father  awaiteth  thee," 
and  he  pondered  within  himself  for  a  long  time 
what  this  saying  might  mean  and  what  kind  of 
bird  this  "father"  who,  they  said,  was  await- 
ing him,  might  prove  to  be.  But  it  was  not  only 
the  parrots  that  were  tame  in  this  river  valley. 
Stags  with  their  hinds  were  lying  at  rest  and 
chewing  the  cud  on  its  soft  turf  under  holly 
oaks  of  a  thousand  years  growth.  Snuffing 
antelopes,  creatures  that,  in  their  outward  sem- 
blance summed  up  all  the  graciousness,  and  all 
the  gentle  nobility  of  peace,  trotted  up  to  the 
wayfarer  fearlessly,  and  nuzzled  him  with  their 
soft  nostrils.  Heather  as  high  as  a  grown  man 
stood  in  snowy  flower,  and  from  groves  of  thick 
laurel  came  the  fluting  of  hidden  songsters, 
whose  notes  were  of  unearthly,  liquid  sweet- 
ness. Over  this  dream-like,  breathless  pleas- 
ance  was  of  a  sudden  wafted  the  far  off  sound 
of  a  bell,  a  sound  that  made  every  bird  stay  its 
flight,  or  song  and  caused  the  antelopes,  and  the 


34  Parsival 

deer,  to  stand  still,  even  to  pause  in  chewing  the 
cud.  With  necks  outstretched  they  turned 
towards  a  patch  of  flaming  purple  in  the  far 
distance  at  the  head  of  the  valley,  a  spot  whence 
in  the  red  dawn  the  river  was  now  streaming 
like  a  broad  highway  of  crimson  blood.  Nor 
could  Parisval  forbear  to  turn  to  the  selfsame 
quarter.  Then  he  became  aware  that  the  ruby 
light  had  its  rise  from  the  pinnacles  of  a  proud 
castle,  which  of  a  surety  was  none  other  than 
the  one  he  sought,  and  that  to  which  the  fisher- 
man had  sent  him. 

Then  he  heard  unseen  voices  in  the  air,  chant- 
ing this  chant-like  song: 

I  dwell  beside  a  broad,  fair  river, 

I  dwell  within  a  lofty  dome, 

The  broad,  fair  flood  flows  through  the  dome, 

And  ever  broader  grows  the  river, 

And  ever  higher  towers  the  dome, 

Endless  the  stream  flows  through  the  dome. 

I  am  afloat  upon  the  river, 
Wherein  a  second  dome  is  mirrored. 
I  plunge  deep  down  within  the  dome, 
And  rise  on  high  above  the  river, 


Parsival  35 


A-wing  within  the  upper  dome, 
Music  floods  through  the  upper 


upper  dome. 

Wave  after  wave  comes  from  the  river 
And  all's  a-quiver  in  the  dome, 
And  thrilling,  echoing,  through  the  dome 
Thou  know'st  not,  art  thou  but  the  river? 
Art  all  that  moves  and  stirs  the  dome? 
Art  at  the  last  thyself  the  dome. 

Not  long  afterwards  the  boy  had  gained  the 
gates  of  the  mysterious  castle,  after  crossing 
to  the  threshold  of  the  castle  over  a  bridge  of 
clearest  crystal  that  spanned  the  river  which 
was  notably  broad  here  and  still  flowed  like  a 
stream  of  blood.  He  knocked  at  the  gate  and 
was  bidden  welcome  by  a  kindly  warder  with 
a  long  white  beard.  At  the  sight  of  this  new 
human  being  and  man,  his  mother's  bitter  judg- 
ment concerning  mankind  came  into  his  mind, 
and  he  could  not  bring  himself  to  answer  the 
old  man's  kindly  questions  touching  his  errand 
other  than  with  darkling  wrath. 

"Ye  have  done  my  mother  hurt  beyond  all 
healing,"  quoth  he,  "and,  if,  over  and  above, 


36  Parsival 

ye  have  taken  her  away  and  hold  her  captive, 
look  well  to  yourselves,  for  I  shall  set  her  free 
by  force  or  put  fire  to  your  castle  at  all  four 
corners  at  once,  as  ye  did  to  my  mother's  log 
hut." 

The  warder  was  a  man  of  lofty  bearing.  Save 
that  his  kindly  gravity  was,  as  it  were,  deepened 
by  a  certain  air  of  friendly  gentleness,  you  could 
not  have  told  that  this  headstrong  utterance 
had  touched  him.  He  only  said,  quite  simply: 
"In  the  name  of  the  Holy  Grail,  enter." 

"What  is  the  Grail  to  me?"  quoth  Parsival. 

"Ask  God  as  to  that,"  the  warder  made 
answer. 

"Who  is  God,  old  greybeard?    I  know  not." 

The  venerable  man,  who  bore  a  coat  of  silver 
mail,  plain  to  see,  under  his  long,  white  cloak 
and  across  it  a  sword  in  a  broad  gold  belt,  said, 
as  if  in  reproof,  "Call  me  Gornemant."  And 
he  went  on  solemnly:  "What  thou  dost  not 
know  concerning  God,  thou  wilt  never  learn  of 
asking  questions.  So  long  as  thou  art  speaking, 
lad,  God  holds  His  peace,  and  only  when  thou 
has  learnt  to  hold  thy  peace  in  very  deed,  will 


Parsvoal  37 

God  speak.  Go,  the  Lord  of  the  Castle  awaits 
thee." 

But  Parsival  was  in  no  mind  to  be  over-awed. 
In  the  company  of  another  knight,  or  whoever 
else  he  might  be,  arrayed  like  the  warder,  he 
passed  up  a  broad,  marble  stairway,  brawling 
at  the  top  of  his  voice.  He  would,  he  said,  know 
how  to  avenge  his  mother  a  hundredfold,  if  so 
be  they  had  done  her  a  twofold  wrong.  But 
his  guide  only  crossed  his  hands  on  his  breast 
and  bowed  his  head,  in  humble  fashion  before 
him.  By  this  demeanour  Parsival  was,  in  some 
measure,  put  to  confusion.  Over  and  above, 
came  the  sight  of  the  many  stairways,  cham- 
bers, halls,  and  casements  of  the  castle,  whose 
whole  fabric  put  him  in  mind  of  the  work  of 
magic.  He  was  led  through  crypts  where  many 
twisted  pillars  of  black  marble  mirrored  the 
light  of  a  single  blood-red  lamp.  Thereupon, 
his  guide  said:  "We  are  in  the  depths  beneath 
the  river  here." 

He  had  to  grope  his  way  behind  his  guide 
through  narrow,  unlit  galleries,  then  round  and 
round  in  circles,  and  up  and  up,  stair  after  stair, 


38  Parsival 

as  though  winding  round  the  trunk  of  a  mighty 
tree  of  stone.  A  postern  gate  stood  open,  and 
he  saw  a  vast  dome  overhead,  high  and  broad, 
and  glistening  with  gold,  the  like  of  which  the 
poor  lad  had  not  even  in  his  dreams  beheld. 
The  whole  building,  wherein  he  himself  was 
only  some  antlike  thing,  seemed  to  breathe  soft 
melody.  No  wonder  that  the  simple  lad,  Parsi- 
val, was  not  straightway  master  of  his  senses, 
and  was  for  a  while  quite  unmindful  who  he 
was  or  what  his  errand  in  this  place. 

When  he  awoke  from  his  bewilderment  he  was 
alone. 

But  he  was  forthwith  wholly  given  up  to 
listening,  gazing,  and  marvelling  anew.  Was 
it  he  himself  that  he  felt,  heard,  and  saw  all 
round  about  him?  Was  it  in  good  sooth,  only 
his  soul  that  was  fulfilled  with  such  visions  as 
these?  Was  it,  this  soul  of  his,  the  throbbing 
dome  that  he  bore  within  himself?  Or  was  he 
dead,  and  himself  nothing  other  than  a  vibrating 
breath  lost  in  all  these  moving  marvels? 

For  of  a  truth  it  was  only  in  outer  seeming 
alone  that  all  this  was  stable.  It  seemed  rather 


Parsival  39 

as  if  it  were  fashioned  of  some  ethereal  fabric. 
Moreover  this  vast  cathedral  was,  it  seemed, 
twofold,  and  dizziness  overtook  him  as,  gazing 
down  through  the  streaming  mirror  of  the  floor, 
he  beheld  the  second  mighty  dome  reversed, 
and  like  a  bowl,  deep  as  an  abyss,  beneath  his 
feet. 

But  amid  all  this  swaying,  quivering,  and 
throbbing,  there  came  a  voice  wherein  the  car 
"Heartache"  was  ever  a-tremble,  his  Mother's 
name,  fraught  with  that  mystery  and  meaning 
that  once  before  had  led  him  to  turn  back. 

And  not  unlike  a  man  smitten  with  blind- 
ness Parsival  staggered  on.  Fleeting  visions 
encompassed  him,  swiftly  fashioned,  to  vanish 
as  swiftly.  Thus  he  thought  to  behold  his  mother 
fashioned  of  some  white  substance,  clad  in 
white  raiment,  with  a  white  dead  body  of  one 
done  to  death,  like  the  Knight  of  the  Heath, 
laid  across  her  knees. 

All  this  is  witchcraft,  thought  Parsival,  who 
had  stretched  out  his  hands  in  the  joyful  agony 
of  recognition  towards  Heartache,  whereupon  it 
all  melted  like  some  aerial  cheat. 


4O  Parsival 

While  he  was  brooding  over  this  illusion,  the 
first  of  a  rather  long  train  passed  like  little  ants 
into  the  church  through  a  side  chapel,  and  Par- 
sival marked  its  passage.  His  guide,  who  now 
showed  himself  anew,  told  him  that  the  Lord  of 
the  Castle  was  of  this  train  of  old  men  and  young. 
Every  one  of  them  was  wearing  a  white  tunic 
and  the  big  red  cross  embroidered  in  needlework 
on  their  breasts.  With  the  entry  of  the  train 
the  solemn  inward  music  of  the  vast  vault  of 
stone  had  swelled  in  volume.  The  guide  speak- 
ing said:  "It  is  not  meet  for  a  stranger  to  address 
the  Lord  of  the  Castle.  Therefore  prithee, 
Parsival,  wait  until  he  bids  thee  speak." 

The  train  drew  nearer  and  with  it  one  borne 
upon  a  litter  and  arrayed  in  far  more  costly 
fashion  than  the  rest.  Before  them  all,  under  a 
silken  baldaquin,  was  borne  a  marvellous  crystal 
vessel  that  seemed  to  glow  of  itself  in  a  pure 
and  white  radiance.  They  passed  on,  and  it 
seemed  to  the  waiting  lad  as  if  not  even  one  of 
many  men  drawing  near  in  the  convoy  paid 
heed  to  him  at  all. 

He  grew  discomfited,  and  his  guide  stayed  his 


Parsival  41 

unrest.  At  this  moment  they  bore  by  a  spear 
bleeding  at  the  point.  The  spear,  borne  by  its 
bearer  at  the  slope,  dripped  from  its  mystic 
source  of  blood,  drop  after  drop  of  blood  into 
the  glistening  bowl.  They  had  at  the  last  borne 
it  up  the  steps  of  an  altar,  and  set  it  down  above 
it  as  the  holy  of  holies. 

To  the  boy's  eye  these  wondrous  happenings 
seemed,  as  indeed  they  were,  a  wonder  passing 
all  understanding.  Albeit,  amid  so  many  things 
that  passed  understanding,  it  became  in  some 
sort  a  riddle,  whose  reading  was  at  that  moment 
of  less  concern  to  him.  Grief  for  his  mother  was 
eating  him  up.  At  sight  of  her  counterfeit 
fashioned  of  mist  all  the  son's  longing  was 
stirred  anew,  and  the  sight  of  so  many  folk  and 
men  put  him  in  mind  of  Heartache's  bitter 
words  touching  the  whole  race  of  men.  He  was 
about  to  burst  forth  in  rough  words  when 
Gornemant  bade  him  hold  his  peace,  because, 
so  he  said,  the  High  Mass  was  about  to  begin. 

"What  may  this  portend?"  thought  Parsival. 

But  the  question  died  in  stubbornness  and 
grief,  until  the  office  filled  even  him  with  awe. 


42  Parsival 

For  that  which  now  came  to  pass  in  this  secret 
mystic  church  was  a  fearsome  mystery.  A 
piercing  cry  of  pain,  as  of  slow  martyrdom  and 
murder,  rent  the  building.  It  was  as  though 
the  bleeding  spear  were  being  slowly  thrust 
into  the  flesh  of  a  living  man,  as  though  they 
were  filling  the  cup  with  blood  gushing  from 
the  side  of  a  victim  in  torment.  Parsival  was 
about  to  rush  in  rashly,  for  he  thought  he  saw 
that  none  other  than  the  man  on  the  litter  was 
being  put  to  such  dreadful  torment.  But  Gorne- 
mant  held  him  back  in  a  grip,  quiet  but  strong, 
that  restrained  the  lad  with  numbing  strength. 

"I  cannot  cut  my  time  to  waste  here,"  quoth 
Parsival,  still  a-quiver  with  horror.  "Your 
secret  church  mislikes  me.  Ye  practise  things 
here  for  which  I  would  fain  call  ye  to  answer 
sword  in  hand." 

Gornemant  asked:  "Wouldst  thou  not  learn 
what  this  sacrifice  of  flesh  and  blood  may  im- 
port?" 

"No,"  said  the  boy,  "I  would  in  no  wise 
learn.  Tell  me  rather  where  my  mother  is,  and 
who  has  turned  her  hut  to  ashes." 


Parsival  43 

In  the  meantime  the  train  passed  back,  but 
without  the  sacred  furniture,  the  crystal  vessel, 
and  the  bleeding  spear.  These,  together  with 
the  bloody  cup,  they  had  left  on  the  high  altar 
under  knightly  guard.  The  Lord  of  the  Castle, 
who,  strangely  enough,  was  the  pale  man  in 
costly  garments  on  the  litter,  bade  them  set 
him  down,  and  spake  these  words  to  the  waiting 
boy  in  a  hollow,  somewhat  laboured,  but  steady 
voice. 

"Whoartthou?" 

"I  am  Heartache's  son,"  quoth  Parsival. 

"Who  sent  thee  hither?" 

"A  fisherman  whom  I  found  fishing  in  Heart- 
ache's lake,"  quoth  Parsival. 

"What  was  it  for  which  the  fisherman  was 
fishing?" 

"His  speech  was  folly.  He  said  he  had  to 
angle  to  catch  the  fish  on  which  all  turned  be- 
fore he  were  able  to  tell  me  aught  touching  my 
mother,"  Parsival  made  answer  stubbornly. 

"Wherefore  didst  thou  leave  thy  mother?" 

The  lad  made  answer:  "Because  I  would  fain 
avenge  her  on  the  race  of  men,  and  above  all 


44  Parsival 

on  one  that  did  her  a  secret  hurt  beyond  all 
healing." 

The  Lord  of  the  Castle  asked  and  said:  "Who, 
prithee,  is  that?" 

Parsival  answering  said:  "I  know  not." 

The  Lord  of  the  Castle,  who  was  a  man  of 
haggard  mien,  furrowed  by  pain,  whose  sunken 
eyes  shone  like  black  diamonds,  the  Lord  of  the 
Castle  held  his  peace,  so  that  he  might  still  his 
heart  beating  plain  to  hear,  and  his  bosom  gasp- 
ing for  breath.  Then  he  went  on:  "Look  me 
in  the  eye,  boy." 

Parsival,  with  a  fierce  and  forbidding  glance, 
did  his  command. 

"Dost  now  know  who  I  am?" 

"Thou  art  mine  enemy,"  quoth  Parsival, 
mindful  of  his  mother's  bitter  words  touching 
the  race  of  men. 

"Behold,"  said  the  other  hi  answer,  making 
as  if  about  to  cast  off  the  ermine  of  his  kingly 
robes,  "behold  I  too  am  a  man  that  travaileth 
under  a  hurt  beyond  all  healing.  But  seeing 
that  I  too  have  done  my  brethren  and  my  sisters 
wrong,  I  have  given  myself  to  the  service  of  the 


Parsival  45 

Intercessor,  and  have  committed  all  vengeance 
into  HJS  hand.  But  on  myself  alone  do  I  take 
vengeance  in  as  much  as  I  am  guilty  and  de- 
serving to  suffer.  I  have  no  enemy  in  the  world." 

"I  marvel  thereat,"  quoth  Parsival. 

Thereupon  the  Lord  of  the  Castle:  "Hast 
thou  till  now  done  no  man  hurt?  " 

The  boy  was  stricken  dumb  and  could  make 
no  answer.  Then  the  train  moved  on  and  passed 
from  sight  before  Parsival,  touched  to  the  quick, 
regained  the  mastery  of  his  senses. 


VII 

T  was  Gornemant  and  a  troop  of 
younger  horsemen  that  bore  Parsival 
company  across  the  crystal  bridge, 
beyond  the  castle,  and  far  into  the 
enchanted  champaign.  At  one  moment  the 
boy  was  humbled  in  spirit,  at  another  violent, 
and  swayed  to  and  fro  from  grief  to  wrath,  be- 
cause that  he  had  neither  found  his  mother,  nor 
had  tidings  of  her.  Many  a  time,  as  they  drew 
farther  and  farther  away  from  the  castle,  he 
looked  back  because  some  new  feeling  of  heavi- 
ness lay  heavy  on  his  soul,  a  feeling  almost  akin 
to  the  sadness  of  farewell,  hard  as  it  was  in  his 
plight  to  understand  it.  Old  Gornemant  seemed 
to  know  it,  although  on  setting  forth  the  lad 
had  flung  passing  disdainful  and  angry  words 
about  him. 

'It  cannot  be  otherwise,"  he  declared  gravely, 
"I  must  needs  bear  thee  company  with  my 
fellow  knights,  as  far  as  the  boundaries  of  our 
46 


Parsival  47 

own  domain.  Thou  art  yet  in  banishment  in  a 
world  that  is  not  ours." 

"Thank  God  for  that,  old  muttonhead," 
quoth  Parsival,  laughing  albeit  with  some- 
thing of  constraint. 

"That  is  right.  That  likes  me  well,"  said 
Gornemant.  "Thou  hast  learnt  to  know  me. 
There  is  naught  deserving  of  praise  in  a  lamb 
save  that  it  is  longsuffering.  Grant  me  this 
merit,  and  I  am  well  content.  In  gratitude 
therefor  I  shall  now  furnish  thee  with  a  little 
keepsake  which  may  perchance  in  time  to  come 
prove  not  wholly  without  profit  to  thee  on  thy 
wanderings." 

This  was  the  keepsake,  or  rather  the  admon- 
ishment of  Gornemant. 

"Since  thou  hast  left  Heartache's  care,  Par- 
sival, nothing  has  fallen  out  for  thee  as  thou 
wouldst  have  had  it  fall.  Aforetimes  thou  hadst 
eyes  wherewith  thou  wert  able  to  tell  every- 
thing afar  off  and  near  by.  Thenceforward 
thou  has  become  as  one  little  better  than  blind. 
Withal  thou  hast  not  even  made  thy  way  far 
into  the  stranger  world.  Thou  didst  deem  that 


48  Parsival 

grief  for  thy  mother's  secret  hurt  had  kindled 
thee  to  wrath,  and  moved  thee  to  set  out  for  an 
avenger  against  the  race  of  men,  of  whom  thy 
mother  told  thee  that  they  were  by  far  more 
evil  than  wild  beasts.  Yet  thy  mother  was 
herself  only  human,  but  thou  gavest  it  never  a 
thought.  And  therefore  I  give  it  thee  to  bear 
in  mind  to-day.  Thou  boldest  that  that  which 
drove  thee  forth  from  the  race  of  men  was  grief, 
was,  above  all,  hate.  Learn  that  hate  is  Love's 
twin  brother,  albeit,  as  cannot  be  gainsaid,  ill- 
favoured.  And  when  thou  didst  set  forth,  Par- 
sival, at  the  left  hand  thou  hadst,  it  is  true,  the 
ill-favoured  twin  brother  plain  to  see  by  thy 
side;  but  at  thy  right  hand,  holden  for  the  time 
from  thine  eyes,  his  twin  sister,  Love,  as  well." 

"I  would  fain  not  confound  thy  callow  young 
head  in  greater  confusion,  Parsival.  I  would 
only  commend  this  twin  sister  to  thee,  even  if 
she  be  not,  as  yet,  manifest  to  thy  eyes.  And 
now  let  us  speak  of  other  matters." 

The  big,  boorish  scapegrace  had  hitherto 
hearkened  with  strained  attention.  He  gazed 
about  him,  he  beat  the  air,  he  was  fain  to  believe 


Parsival  49 

that,  inasmuch  as  the  old  man  were  not  making 
a  mock  of  him,  he  must  needs  touch  the  twin 
brother  and  the  twin  sister,  and  behold  them 
with  his  eyes.  "Let  us  see  what  more  old  grey- 
beard will  trot  out,"  he  then  thought. 

And  Gornemant  now  went  on : 

"Ever  since  on  that  day  of  tempest  that  up- 
rooted the  trees  in  thy  mother's  forest,  the 
thought  was  in  thy  mind  to  be  as  unconstrained 
as  the  whirlwind  and  the  mountain  torrent, 
whirling  its  banks  down  upon  its  flood,  thou 
hast  been  entangled  in  a  net  of  error  and  a  life 
full  of  riddles.  Thou  hadst  thy  first  tidings 
touching  the  world  and  the  race  of  men  from 
thy  mother.  One  veil  of  the  lack  of  knowledge 
has  fallen.  But  now  learn  that  the  world  and 
mankind  are  a  riddle  enwrapt  in  countless  veils 
of  myriad  hues.  Thou  didst  save  a  dove 
by  slaying  a  hawk.  When  thou  spedst  that 
arrow,  twin  sister,  Love,  though  thou  knewest 
it  not,  guided  thy  hand.  She,  too,  it  was  that 
lured  and  drew  thee  on,  when  thou  didst  place 
the  dove  back  beside  her  mate  on  the  half 
hatched  eggs  of  her  nest.  So  Love  was  thy 


5o  Parsival 

guide,  and,  is  it  not  a  wonderous  thing,  guided 
by  Love  didst  thou  find  the  sword.  It  had  a 
ruby  in  its  hilt,  and  it  seemed  to  thee  as  if  a 
gleaming  drop  of  blood  from  the  wounded  dove 
had  dropped  upon  it  from  above." 

So  this  thing  had  indeed  befallen,  but  by  what 
manner  of  means  can  he  know  all  this,  thought 
Parsival  within  himself. 

"Thou  shall  now  learn  what  this  sword  por- 
tends. Much  guiltless  blood  cleaves  to  it.  The 
heroes  that  have  wielded  and  misused  it  were  at 
the  last  led,  guided  of  a  surety,  by  the  hand  of 
God,  to  put  it  away  from  them.  They  buried 
it  in  the  trunk  of  a  hollow  beech  where  thou, 
too,  didst  find  it,  and  where  thou  too,  singled  out 
by  the  beck  of  God,  hast  hidden  it  once  more. 
Then  thou  didst  run  out  hot  foot  into  the  world, 
and  earnest  upon  the  little  maid  in  her  tent  on 
the  edge  of  the  wood." 

("Now  I  know  who  that  was,"  thought  Par- 
sival within  himself.  "It  was  none  other  than 
the  twin  sister,  Love.") 

"Thou  didst  then  fall  in  with  the  knight  whom 
thou  hast  slain  out  of  hand.  Thou  art  no  mur- 


Parsival  51 

derer,"  he  said,  as  the  young  man  at  his  side 
made  as  if  to  break  in  hotly;  "  'tis  true,  ye  fought. 
Nevertheless  that  doth  not  hinder  it  that  thou 
hast  laden  a  grievous  and  uneasy  burden,  that 
thou  hast  taken  blood-guiltiness,  upon  thy 
shoulders.  Not  long  hereafter  brother  twin, 
Hate,  held  thee  no  longer  thrall,  and  Love  drew 
thee  unresisting  homeward  to  thy  mother's 
hearth.  But  thou  didst  not  find  thy  mother 
again.  The  roof  of  thy  youth  had  been  torn 
away,  the  refuge  of  thy  youth  was  a  blackened 
heap  of  ashes." 

"Aye,  in  very  truth  it  was,"  Parsival  now 
cried  with  wrathful  fervour.  "And  now  that 
I  know  the  robber  and  the  despoiler,  woe  be- 
tide him!  Heaven  knoweth  wherefore  when  I 
beheld  him  the  right  thought  did  not  come  to 
me.  Wherefore  else  should  the  treacherous 
fisherman  have  been  stealing  round  about  Heart- 
ache's lake?  But  I  shall  draw  forth  my  sword 
where  I  have  hidden  it.  I  shall  find  the  angler 
again,  and  when  I  find  him  he  shall,  as  did  the 
proud  Lord  of  the  Heath,  water  the  green  grass 
with  red  blood!" 


52  Parsival 

"Thou  hast  outstayed  that  moment,"  said 
Gornemant.  "The  sick  Lord  of  the  Castle 
whom  thou  hast  seen,  and  the  lonely  fisher- 
man on  Heartache's  lake,  were  one  and  the 
same." 

"Yet  for  a  breathing  space  it  shot  through 
my  soul  while  I  gazed  upon  him,"  cried 
Parsival. 

In  the  meantime  Gornemant  with  the  lad 
had  come  to  a  pleasance  shut  in  behind  tall 
hedges  of  roses.  Their  companions  had  has- 
tened on  before  them,  and  had  there  set  up  a 
tent  of  black  gleaming  silk  with  a  cross  of  gold 
above  its  ridge.  "Here,"  said  the  old  man, 
"we  have  come  to  the  boundary,  and  I  believe 
thou  wilt,  not  without  having  given  ear  to  me 
to  the  last,  fare  forth  stubborn  and  headstrong 
into  the  stranger  world  of  dangers  and  entangle- 
ments." 

As  he  spoke  fair  pages  with  bright  curls  bore, 
the  while  strange  music  filled  the  air,  a  helmet, 
a  shield,  and  a  coat  of  mail,  on  purple  cushions 
from  out  of  the  black  tent. 

"How  comes  it  that  my  sword  is  hi  your 


Parsival  53 

hands?"  cried  Parsival,  astounded,  but  old 
Gornemant  made  answer: 

"We  shall  show  thee  the  falcon,  the  dove,  and 
the  fisherman  to  boot." 

Thereupon  he  took  the  casque,  and  showed 
him  a  falcon  of  gold  with  an  arrow  through  its 
breast,  a  glorious  imagery  wherewith  the  ar- 
mourer had  adorned  it.  He  took  the  shield,  in 
the  middle  of  which  a  bleeding  dove  was  plain 
to  see.  The  breastplate  displayed  the  counter- 
feit of  an  angler  with  rod  and  line  in  fair  inlaid 
workmanship.  "These  devices  stand  for  Heart- 
ache," said  Gornemant,  pointing  with  his  finger 
to  certain  curious  designs  done  in  rubies,  and 
traced  as  an  oval  framework  round  the  picture 
of  the  dove  and  shield. 

"To  what  man  doth  all  this  belong?"  asked 
Parsival  with  eyes  that  shone  with  covetousness. 

"Kneel  thee  down,"  Gornemant  bade  him, 
without  making  answer. 

Parsival  only  knew  that  he  fell  willy-nilly 
on  his  knees.  "Thou  wilt  wear  these  arms  first, 
Parsival,  and  then  earn  them.  Fare  forth  into 
the  wide  world,  but  first  rehearse  these  words 


54  Parsival 

after  me,  and  imprint  what  I  shall  say  on  thy 
memory." 

He  spoke  in  a  clear  loud  voice,  and  the  young 
man  on  his  knees  rehearsed  the  words  as  plainly. 

"Love  your  enemies. 

"Bless  them  that  curse  you. 

"Pray  for  them  that  persecute  you  and  de- 
spitefully  use  you." 

"Pray  for  them  that  persecute  you  and  de- 
spitefully  use  you,"  repeated  Parsival,  in  an 
oddly  unsteady  voice;  and  on  the  same  instant 
Gornemant  dealt  him  so  shrewd  a  blow  on  the 
cheek  that  he  all  but  swooned,  and  then  was 
about  to  leap  to  his  feet  like  a  goaded  lion.  But 
on  the  same  instant  he  was  aware  how  a  red 
banner  with  a  Head  crowned  with  thorns  and 
furrowed  by  pain  was  unfurled  behind  Gorne- 
mant, and  he  heard  words  passing  his  under- 
standing saying:  "Tell  us,  Thou  Christ,  which 
it  was  that  smote  Thee?" 

After  these  happenings  they  put  the  helmet 
on  Parsival's  head,  buckled  the  armour  about 
him,  girt  a  new  sword  about  his  thigh,  and  made 
fast  his  shield  on  his  left  arm.  Thereupon 


Parsival  55 

Gornemant  clapped  his  hands.  They  heard 
the  sound  of  heavy  hoofs,  and  a  strong,  un- 
broken horse,  quivering  but  obedient,  drew 
near,  trailing  the  hair  of  its  thick,  long  mane 
and  tail  on  the  ground. 

Gornemant  cried:  "The  war-horse  is  thine, 
Sir  Parsival,"  and  straightway  they  bridled  and 
saddled  the  steed. 

"Then  truth,  I  stand  not  on  the  order  of  my 
going,"  said  Heartache's  son,  as  he  leapt  lightly 
into  the  saddle.  Neighing  loudly  the  charger 
bore  its  rider  thence. 


VIII 

IRST  at  a  gallop,  then  at  an  amble, 
at  the  last  at  foot  pace,  Parsival 
might  well  have  put  half  a  day's 
journey  behind  him  when  he  came 
to  a  river  and  a  ferryman's  hut.  The  man  saw 
to  it  that  the  horse  had  provender,  and  seeing 
that  the  evening  was  drawing  in,  proffered  the 
knight  the  shelter  of  his  hut. 

"You  are  mine  enemy,"  said  Parsival,  "but  it 
would  ill  beseem  me  were  I  already  unmindful 
of  the  lesson  'Love  your  enemies/  that  Gorne- 
mant  taught  me  but  this  very  day."  Therewith 
he  accepted  the  shelter  and  held  out  his  hand  to 
the  poor  ragged  boatman. 

When  the  other  had  seated  himself  with  his 
guest  at  the  meal  of  bread,  a  few  thin  slices  of 
bacon,  and  a  sour  wine,  and  the  knight  had  laid 
his  costly  pieces  of  armour  on  the  blackened 
wooden  bench,  he  said:  "What  purports  the 
56 


Parsival  57 

falcon  with  the  arrow  through  its  breast  you 
bear  on  your  casque?" 

"I  do  not  know,"  said  Parsival. 

"What  does  the  dove  on  your  shield  purport? 
What  of  the  fisherman  on  your  breastplate?  " 

"You  set  me  too  many  questions,  old  beaver," 
quoth  Parsival.  "Methinks  the  future  will  in 
due  time  make  the  purport  of  all  these  devices 
plain  to  me.  For  the  nonce,  do  not  addle  your 
brain  with  them,  and  bide  your  time  in  patience 
as  I  do." 

But  the  fisherman  was  still  wishful  to  know 
what  the  word  "Heartache"  meant. 

"So  far  as  that  is  concerned,  I  know,  alack! 
more  than  I  would  lief  know.  Heartache  is  my 
poor  mother  whom  I  have  lost  by  mine  own 
fault,  and  for  whom  I  must  now  make  quest 
up  and  down  throughout  all  the  world  until 
the  end  of  my  life." 

That  same  night  on  his  hard  couch  in  the 
ferryman's  cot,  Sir  Parsival  dreamed  a  dream. 

The  falcon  of  beaten  gold  on  his  helmet  came 
flying  to  his  bedside,  and  said  in  a  clear  voice: 
"Pluck  the  arrow  from  my  breast,  Parsival." 


58  Parsival 

"No,"  quoth  the  sleeper,  "for  with  beak  and 
claw  hast  thou  done  my  mother  bloody  hurt." 

The  image  of  the  dove  then  cast  itself  loose 
from  the  shield,  and  came  flying  on  to  Parsival's 
breast.  The  little  dove  said:  "Pluck  the  arrow 
from  the  golden  falcon's  breast,  Sir  Parsival." 

To  the  sleeper's  great  amazement,  the  falcon 
had  now  taken  to  itself  the  image  of  the  sick 
Lord  of  the  Castle  or  of  the  Head  crowned 
with  Thorns.  For  the  third  vision  of  this  dis- 
quiet slumber  the  fisherman  on  the  breastplate 
came  to  the  new-made  sleeping  knight  to  re- 
hearse the  words  in  turn:  "Pluck  thou  the  arrow 
from  the  golden  falcon's  breast,  Sir  Parsival." 

"No,"  moaned  the  dreamer.  "But  tell  me 
now  what  manner  of  fisherman  thou  art?  " 

"A  Fisher  of  Men,"  quoth  the  angler. 

"And  what  is  the  fish  that  above  all  others 
thou  must  needs  catch?"  asked  the  dreamer. 

"It  is  thou,"  said  the  fisherman,  "thou  thy- 
self art  the  fish,  Sir  Parsival." 

On  the  morrow  the  ferryman  took  the  young 
knight  in  his  glittering  harness  high  on  his 
horse's  back  across  the  river  in  his  broad  wherry. 


Parsival  59 

Before  day  broke,  while  the  visions  of  his  dream 
together  with  all  else  that  had  befallen  him, 
were  passing  through  his  mind,  he  bethought 
himself  what  significance  it  behoved  him  to  give 
them.  Beyond  all  doubt  the  devices  on  his 
arms  were  interwoven  with  his  living  fate  in 
time  past  and  to  come.  Yet  it  was  beyond  his 
cunning  to  unriddle  them.  Then  of  a  sudden 
the  ferryman  asked  him,  just  as  the  boat  was 
touching  the  farther  bank:  "Sir  Knight,  what 
law  have  you  laid  upon  yourself?  "  And  Parsival, 
who  was  as  quickly  aware  that  a  true  knight  is 
subject  not  to  the  general  laws  of  chivalry  alone, 
but  must  above  all  else  lay  stern  laws  of  lofty 
self-control,  never  to  be  broken,  upon  himself, 
said,  as  gaining  the  shore,  with  a  great  bound 
of  his  horse,  he  turned  the  mettled  snorting 
beast  back  towards  the  river,  boat,  and  ferry- 
man: "When  there  comes  to  your  ears  the  re- 
nown of  a  knight  who  puts  these  questions  to 
all  and  sundry  of  his  peers  on  whom  he  chances: 
'Whither  hath  Heartache  been  borne?'  'What 
meaneth  the  dove  on  my  shield,  the  falcon 
pierced  by  an  arrow  on  my  crest,  and  the  fisher- 


60  Parsival 

man  on  my  breastplate?'  then  bethink  you 
this  was  Parsival,  Heartache's  orphaned  son. 
But  when  Parsival  is  minded  to  fight  with  an 
adversary  without  quarter,  for  life  or  death,  he 
will  set  upon  him  with  the  words:  'Die,  for 
thou  knowest  where  the  cruel  bloodhound  is 
that  did  Heartache  hurt.'" 

At  these  words  the  war-horse  at  a  touch  of 
the  spur  sped  away. 

After  all  these  happenings  years  sped  by,  dur- 
ing which  time  folk  at  many  places  and  ends  of 
the  earth  had  word  of  the  strange  knight  who 
bore  the  falcon  pierced  by  an  arrow  on  his  helm, 
the  fisherman  and  the  dove  for  his  devices,  and 
overthrew  every  man  who  did  not  give  answer 
concerning  them  to  the  young  warrior's  content. 
Many  a  knight  of  highest  renown  he  had  ridden 
down  with  the  cry:  "Die,  for  thou  knowest  where 
he  is  that  did  Heartache  hurt,"  so  that  without 
ruth  they  had  to  bite  the  grass,  for  that  means 
that  those  overthrown  writhed  on  the  ground, 
and  in  their  death  agony  did  in  very  truth  bite 
earth  and  grass.  What  wonder  that  Parsival, 
encompassed  by  dark  report,  was  for  the  most 


Parsival  61 

part  hated,  still  more  feared.  He  was,  some 
folk  said,  possessed  of  a  stubborn  black  mad- 
ness which  some  curse  had  laid  upon  him. 

Amid  the  many  adventures  that  befell  the 
mysterious  and  homeless  knight,  there  came 
at  length  one,  one  only,  that  put  him  in  grave 
jeopardy  and  did  not  let  him  issue  scathless. 
It  was  on  the  open  plain,  not  very  far  from  the 
sea,  in  the  stormy  days  of  autumn  rainfall, 
that  a  knight  on  a  white  horse,  wrapped  in  a 
black  cloak,  displaying  nothing  save  a  golden 
dove,  crossed  his  path. 

"Where  is  Heartache?  What  meaneth  the 
falcon  pierced  by  an  arrow  on  my  crest,  what  the 
dove,  and  what  the  fisherman?  "  Parsival  asked, 
as  was  his  wont.  But  from  behind  the  closed 
visor  only  this  answer  reached  him:  "Inquire 
from  me  rather  of  the  Grail,  Sir  Parsival."  But 
on  a  sudden  the  other  shouted:  "Die,  for  thou 
knowest  where  the  bloodhound  is  that  did  my 
mother  hurt."  And  herewith  the  fight  began 
whose  din  folk  could  hear  far  off  in  the  low  lying 
villages  on  the  canal  and  lakes,  but  it  did  not 
end  with  the  death  of  the  stranger  knight,  but 


62  Parsival 

for  first  in  the  out-tiring  of  both  champions. 
"Give  answer  to  my  question,"  panted  Par- 
sival; and  "Ask  of  me  concerning  the  Grail," 
the  answer  came  again.  A  new  onset,  fiercer 
than  the  first,  locked  the  adversaries.  Nor  did 
victory  fall  to  Parsival  this  time,  rather  it  looked 
much  as  if  the  stranger  masked  knight  out- 
matched him  in  strength.  One  time  or  another 
in  this  world  every  man  finds  his  master. 

And,  in  truth,  at  the  third  onset  the  cham- 
pion with  the  golden  dove,  had,  after  a  long 
struggle,  planted  his  knee  on  Parsival's  chest. 

"I  should  of  rights  strip  ye  of  your  dangerous 
harness,  Sir  Parsival,"  he  said.  "But  for  the 
nonce,  I  shall  forbear,  and  shall  set  you  free  to 
fare  up  and  down  the  land  for  a  season  like  a 
bull  consumed  by  silent  wrath.  Ye  are  still 
something  uncouth  and  rude  for  knighthood, 
and  meseems  a  hard  and  uncomfortable  winter 
reigns  behind  your  brow.  As  ye  are  now  de- 
livered fenceless  into  my  hands,  Sir  Parsival, 
ye  are,  as  ye  well  know  bounden  by  the  laws  of 
chivalry  to  do  my  bidding.  I  therefore  lay  this 
behest  upon  you,  first,  for  the  space  of  a  year, 


Parsival  63 

to  fight,  neither  for  your  own  honour  nor  in 
behalf  of  any  king,  neither  in  war  nor  in  single 
combat.  During  which  term  ye  shall,  in  lieu 
of  asking  others,  commune  with  yourself  what 
the  falcon,  dove,  and  fisherman  may  portend, 
r/here  your  mother  dwells,  and  he  that  did  her 
hurt.  Ye  will  furthermore  commune  with  your- 
self concerning  the  Grail,  and  seek,  by  peaceful 
ways,  to  gain  knowledge  there  anent  what  it 
be,  and  also  who  your  father  is." 

Discomfited,  and  almost  eaten  up  by  shame 
for  the  lost  honour  of  his  arms,  the  vanquished 
knight  gave  pledge  in  all  these  matters. 


JT  was  in  very  dolorous  mood  that 
the  knight  rode  in  through  the  gates 
of  a  great  city.  He  had  looped  his 
helmet  on  his  arm,  and  his  uncovered 
head  drooped  forward  on  his  breast  as  of  a  man 
asleep.  In  answer  to  his  weary  summons,  they 
showed  him  the  way  to  the  inn  nearest  by.  His 
horse  was  fouled  by  dust,  caked  with  mud,  and 
was  bleeding  from  more  wounds  than  one,  but 
the  knight  left  it  to  the  grooms  of  the  hostelry 
without  paying  it  further  heed,  and  withdrew 
into  the  chamber  allotted  to  him. 

This  city  was  under  the  rule  of  its  Queen, 
Blancheflour,  a  beauteous  maiden.  The  report 
of  her  beauty  was  far-spread,  and  had  drawn 
thither  a  multitude  of  wooers,  among  whom, 
nevertheless,  no  man  had  crossed  her  path 
whom  she  could  love  and  make  her  spouse  and 
King.  From  her  Castle,  high  above  the  city, 
you  looked  down  upon  the  sea  and  on  the  har- 
64 


Parsival  65 

hour,  and  on  the  heavy-laden  ships  of  mer- 
chandise that  sailed  in  and  out  upon  the  flood 
tide  from  every  people  and  from  every  nation. 

But  none  the  less,  and  though  she  had  a  kindly 
old  kinswoman  to  bear  her  company,  time 
hung  heavily  on  the  maiden  queen.  Her  people 
had  to  see  to  it  that  she  was  enlivened  by  all 
the  news  of  the  city  day  by  day.  She  was  in- 
tent to  have  word  of  every  stranger  of  mark, 
and  to  have  travellers  of  renown,  or  such  as 
were  of  high  station,  brought  to  her  presence. 

When  she  learnt  of  the  coming  of  a  wounded 
young  knight,  who,  with  a  countenance  white 
as  chalk,  had  ridden  dolorously  into  the  city 
on  a  black  battered  horse,  and  was  lodging  at 
the  "Sign  of  the  Blue  Wallet,"  she  straightway 
took  note  thereof.  A  knight  with  a  grizzled 
beard  would  maybe  have  kept  her  thoughts  less 
busy  than  a  youth  who  was  still  all  but  un- 
bearded. It  was  her  pleasure  to  learn,  and  that 
in  full  particular,  what  devices  the  knight  bore. 

Now  they  had  given  no  close  heed  to  that 
matter.  One  of  Blancheflour's  serving  men 
meanwhile  drew  out  of  a  varlet  at  the  "Blue 


66  Parsival 

Wallet,"  what  it  was  her  pleasure  to  learn,  and 
they  brought  her  word  concerning  the  helmet, 
shield,  and  breastplate  of  the  spent  and  wounded 
knight. 

Strange  to  relate  she  was  thereat  moved  in 
deep  and  joyful  fashion,  and  would  liefest  have 
straightway  set  forth  to  see  the  sick  knight. 
But  he  had,  so  they  told  her,  barred  his  door, 
and  was  to  all  seeming  lying  deep  in  sleep. 

Then  she  bade  them  send  physicians  and  wine 
to  the  knight.  On  his  awakening  he  was,  she 
gave  order,  to  have  food  from  the  Royal  kitchens 
and  to  be  tended  with  all  care. 

She  slept  very  unrestfully  that  night.  On 
the  morrow  towards  noon-day  they  led  the 
knight,  whose  face  was  still  wan,  into  her  pres- 
ence. 

Before  that  either  had  spoken  a  word,  the 
one  to  the  other,  Blancheflour  was  aware,  as 
was  Parsival,  that  thenceforward  their  fates 
were  linked  together  for  aye.  Before  the  maid 
had  parted  the  red  lips  of  her  sweet  mouth  for 
the  first  greetings  she  had  given  her  heart  to 
Parsival,  and  Parsival,  standing  there  in  his 


Parsival  67 

falcon  helmet,  and  bowing  himself  low  before 
her,  would  fain,  for  the  first  time  vanquished 
through  and  through,  have  fallen  at  her  feet  for 
her  thrall  and  bondsman. 

"Sir  Knight,"  Blancheflour,  with  a  light 
quiver  in  her  voice,  now  began, — her  worthy 
kinswoman  in  her  high  white  snood  standing 
behind  her  chair — "Sir  Knight,  I  have  had 
you  summoned  to  our  presence  for  a  wholly 
particular  intent,  and  first  of  all  give  you  our 
thanks  for  your  coming.  They  have  told  me, 
and  I  now  behold  it  with  my  own  eyes,  that 
you  bear  a  golden  falcon  pierced  by  an  arrow 
on  your  casque,  the  image  of  a  fisherman  on 
your  corselet,  and  a  dove  on  your  shield.  All 
these  symbols,  for  a  certain  reason  which  I 
shall  make  plain  to  you  anon,  touch  me  nearly. 
If  it  be  not  irksome  to  you,  Sir  Knight,  will  ye 
tell  me  who  bestowed  these  arms  on  you?" 

Parsival  kissed  the  lady's  hand.  "Gorne- 
mant,"  he  said,  "bestowed  these  arms  on  me." 

The  Queen  held  her  peace.  Her  kinswoman, 
in  the  high  white  snood,  and  the  close  black 
cloth  habit,  meantime  asked:  "Sir  Knight,  saw 


68  Parsival 

ye  Gornemant?"  When  the  other  confirmed 
it,  she  went  on:  "Then  ye  are  the  first  after 
five  and  twenty  years  have  come  and  gone  that 
can  give  me  tidings  of  the  brother  of  the  whilom 
King,  of  the  brother  of  my  husband,  who  is 
likewise  dead,  and  of  the  lost  Duke  Gornemant." 
She  wept  aloud,  and  Queen  Blancheflour — a 
name  that  means  as  who  should  say  Blackthorn 
Blossom — was  at  pains  to  comfort  her  in  so  far 
that  she  in  some  measure  regained  the  mastery 
of  herself. 

"In  truth,  Sir  Knight,"  quoth  Blancheflour, 
her  eyes  veiled  in  tears,  "the  King,  my  father, 
the  husband  of  my  good  kinswoman,  and  the 
lost  Duke  Gornemant  were  three  brothers  in- 
separable until,  so  the  chronicles  of  our  house 
record,  Gornemant  set  out  for  the  Holy  Land, 
and  has  since  then  been  missing.  He,  too,  bore 
on  his  arms  the  devices  you  now  bear,"  and 
she  bade  them  bring  what  is  called  a  missal 
manuscript,  a  precious  codex,  on  whose  parch- 
ment folios,  fairly  illumined  in  colours,  Parsival's 
armour,  too,  was  piece  for  piece  on  record. 

"Beyond  all  doubting,"  quoth  he,  "it  was 


Parsival  69 

your  father's  brother  who  endowed  me  with 
his  own  armour  and  gave  me  the  accolade.  But 
I  hold  that  I  was  not  worthy  of  these  honours." 

Both  dames  now  offered  lodging  in  one  of 
the  wings  of  the  Castle  to  Parsival,  but  he  said: 
"I  am  not  worthy." 

It  was  in  some  sort  a  confession,  when,  with 
dull  resignation,  he  set  forth  the  reasons  of  his 
refusing.  This  was  the  long  and  short  of  his 
confession,  to  wit:  that  he  had  done  honour 
neither  to  his  mother  nor  to  Gornemant's  arms, 
that  his  hopeless  darkling  temper  accorded  ill 
with  the  happy  spirit  of  light,  beauty,  and  love 
in  Blancheflour's  realm.  For  the  rest,  he  was 
no  longer  of  knightly  degree,  and  had  assuredly 
been  vanquished  in  fearful  fashion.  If  his  arms 
were  left  him,  they  were  left  him  for  an  act  of 
grace  and  under  bond  not  to  put  them  to  use 
for  the  space  of  a  year.  "That  I  am  not  worthy 
of  them,  ye  can  learn  from  the  words  of  the 
knight  who  overthrew  me  not  far  from  your 
city.  He  bade  me,  in  lieu  of  asking  others  con- 
cerning the  meaning  of  my  device,  to  commune 
with  myself  concerning  them  for  the  space  of  a 


70  Parswal 

year,  and  furthermore  he  bade  me  commune 
concerning  another  matter,  concerning  the 
Grail." 

Then  said  Blancheflour:  "That  ye  shall  in- 
deed do,  but  not  elsewhere  than  in  the  old 
library  of  my  Castle  where  the  ancient  scrips 
concerning  the  Holy  Grail,  which  moved  my 
Uncle  Gornemant  to  set  forth  to  the  Holy  Land, 
are  stored.  He  was  wont  to  sit  buried  in  parch- 
ments, not  for  one  year  alone,  but  for  many  a 
year,  and  of  nights  the  watchmen  on  the  towers 
and  in  the  streets  of  the  city  were  wont  to  mark 
the  light  in  the  casement  above  them  where 
this  solitary  man  was  making  search  into  the 
secret  of  the  Grail." 

"I  am  unlettered,"  said  Parsival. 

"By  so  much  the  better,"  quoth  Blanche- 
flour,  "then  I  shall  read  them  to  you." 


HENCEFORWARD  folk  saw  Sir  Par- 
sival  on  the  high  roads  no  more.  His 
black  war-horse  stood  in  Queen 
Blancheflour's  marechal,  or  was  led 
out  for  exercise  in  the  riding  school  by  royal 
grooms.  His  armour  was  laid  aside  in  the  ar- 
moury where  it  used  to  be  stored  in  the  days  of 
the  lost  Gornemant. 

Parsival  himself  went  forth  in  soft  shoes,  in 
a  green  fur-edged  surcoat,  and  had  at  most  a 
pruning  knife  in  his  belt.  His  fair  hair  fell  over 
his  shoulders  unbound. 

In  this  guise  folk  oft-times  saw  him  passing 
through  the  Palace  gardens,  whose  beauty  was 
of  great  renown  in  the  world,  if  not  as  great  as 
that  of  the  winsome  Blackthorn  Blossom, 
Blancheflour,  whose  bower  they  were.  But  in 
the  course  of  that  year  whosoever  had  sight  of 
Parsival  had  no  need  to  seek  for  Blancheflour, 
for  she  was  for  the  most  part  by  his  side.  In 
71 


72  Parsival 

the  realm,  as  indeed  beyond  its  borders,  folk 
were  already  looking  one  fine  day  to  see  the 
young  knight  raised  to  the  degree  of  Prince 
Consort. 

Blancheflour  became  Parsival's  teacher.  His 
rough  demeanour  became  gentler.  The  in- 
fluence of  the  noble  and  beauteous  maiden 
brought  about  the  change  his  mother,  Heart- 
ache, had  failed  to  achieve.  The  young  warrior 
knew  no  headstrongness  towards  her.  At  the 
beginning  she  used  to  read  to  him  in  her  tuneful 
voice,  until  she  had  kindled  his  desire  for  learn- 
ing, and  he  began  to  spell  out  words  like  a  child 
learning  to  read.  She  bade  them  bring  writing 
tools  of  gold,  and  then  she  guided  the  stalwart 
hero's  hand  as  if  it  were  that  of  a  backward  little 
boy. 

All  these  studies  commended  themselves 
greatly  to  Parsival,  and  he  could  not  understand 
how  a  schoolboy  could  ever  harbour  the  thought 
of  playing  truant. 

Three  months  had  hardly  passed  before  the 
knight  could  read  and  write  a  little,  could  play 
the  lute  and  sing  one  or  two  tuneful  little  songs. 


Parsival  73 

But  Blancheflour  had  taught  him  other  and 
more  beautiful  things,  among  which  merry  and 
heart-whole  laughter,  hitherto  wholly  unknown 
to  him,  but  wherein  he  now  proved  himself 
adept,  was  not  the  least.  In  truth,  among  her 
gifts  were  others  yet  more  precious.  Her  pres- 
ence always  had  the  power  to  turn  night  into 
day,  and  day  into  holiday  for  Parsival.  But 
all  these  things  did  not  exhaust  the  fulness  of 
the  wondrous  power  she  wielded  over  the  man 
who  had  fallen  victim  to  numb  sorrow  at  his 
mother's  loss,  into  error  and  into  sullen  wrath, 
who  had  even  failed  to  turn  all  that  had  befallen 
him  in  the  mystic  castle  to  his  enlightenment. 
For  Blancheflour,  in  this  regard  a  nursing  sister, 
had  the  power  of  healing  the  seared  places 
where  the  mother's  painful  lessons  of  hate  had 
eaten  their  way  into  his  flesh.  In  truth,  she 
set  up  her  own  winsome  presence  in  the  place 
of  his  memory  of  his  mother,  and  therewith  his 
grief  for  her  loss  and  her  wrong  in  Parsival's 
soul. 

He  used  to  bear  her  company  to  the  Cathedral, 
and  mark  her  devoutness  when  amid  bowed 


74  Parsival 

heads  and  bended  knees  Holy  Mass  was  being 
sung  to  music.  By  virtue  of  her  teaching  the 
whole  office  was  by  slow  degrees,  though,  of 
course,  only  as  a  wonder  passing  all  under- 
standing, made  plain  to  him.  After  some  time 
he  was  held  to  be  well-instructed  enough  to  par- 
take the  Body  of  the  Lord. 

In  the  old  library  of  the  Palace  was  a  parch- 
ment that  gave  some  inkling  touching  the  falcon 
pierced  by  an  arrow,  the  dove  and  the  fisher- 
man. It  disclosed  certain  mysteries  that  were 
as  new  to  Blancheflour  as  to  Parsival,  wherefore 
they  were  wont  to  bend  their  heads,  cheek 
touching  cheek,  over  the  scrip  together.  Oft- 
times  they  were  in  no  wise  grave,  and  lost  sight 
of  the  letters  amid  the  tears  of  their  laughter, 
and  in  the  tangle  of  his  curls  and  hers  that 
mingled  over  the  book. 

In  converse  with  Blancheflour,  it  was  not 
long  before  the  knight  could  not  longer  blind 
himself  to  the  fact  that  every  man,  whatever 
his  nature,  has  a  father.  The  thought  that  he, 
too,  had  a  man  for  a  father  made  him  first  joyful 
and  then  disquiet.  He  then  asked  himself  why 


Parsival  75 

his  mother  had  never  told  him  of  his  father,  his 
mother  who  must  have  known  him,  as  Blanche- 
flour  knew  him,  Parsival.  His  thoughts  on  this 
matter  were  full  of  reproach.  He  held  that 
Heartache  had  no  right  to  keep  the  name,  sta- 
tion, and  abode  of  his  father,  and  in  short  the 
whole  of  his  father,  from  him.  It  was  Blanche- 
flour  who  in  this  matter,  too,  tempered  his  always 
somewhat  headstrong  judgment.  She  told  him 
of  people  in  whose  instance  wedlock,  which  in  its 
beginning  was  idle  joyousness  and  bliss,  closed 
in  misery.  But  this  brought  Parsival  into 
jeopardy  of  slipping  back  into  his  old  slough  of 
despond. 

For  he  had  chanced  to  hit  upon  the  thought 
that  it  might  mayhap  be  his  own  father  that 
had  done  Heartache  the  hurt  beyond  all  healing. 
Wrestling  with  this  thought,  he  used  to  with- 
draw himself  for  days  and  not  come  forth  into 
the  open  air.  Smitten  with  how  deep  a  blind- 
ness, had  he  not  made  quest  for  his  father  as 
after  an  arch  enemy,  his  father  whom  he  now 
would  have  met  with  very  other  feelings.  What 
an  infinitely  merciful  providence  had  safe- 


76  Parsival 

guarded  him  from  becoming  his  own  father's 
murderer. 

In  this  train  of  thought  the  sable  knight  of 
the  golden  dove,  who  had  thrown  himself  like 
an  iron  barrier  athwart  his  path,  and,  when  he 
had  flung  himself  against  it,  had  overthrown 
him,  came  back  to  Parsival's  remembrance. 
Wherefore  had  the  stranger  even  after  victory, 
not  raised  his  visor,  wherefore  had  he  sought 
him,  of  all  men,  out,  and  who  might  he  be?  It 
was  not  thinkable  that  a  sick  and  wounded  man 
should  put  forth  such  strength.  With  this  as- 
surance Parsival  kept  a  thought  that  was  ever 
ready  to  assail  him  afresh  at  bay;  it  was  that  not 
the  fisherman  on  Heartache's  lake  and  the  sick 
Lord  of  the  Castle  alone,  but  the  sable  knight 
with  the  golden  dove  as  well,  were  one  and  the 
same.  Be  it  as  it  might,  he  was  now  resolved 
to  beseech  Queen  Blancheflour  to  essay  with 
him  the  study  of  the  Grail  and  of  its  purport. 

This  he  did,  and  the  Queen  led  him  into  the 
library  which  was  a  very  roomy  and  ancient 
vault.  Many  precious  codices,  guarded  by 
scholars,  were  stored  there.  A  venerable  old 


Parsival  77 

man  with  a  white  beard,  bowed  low  before  the 
Queen  and  led  the  two  into  a  separate  chamber, 
not  unlike  to  a  chapel,  that  was  dimly  lit  by 
curious  hanging  lamps  such  as  you  may  see  in 
mosques.  Here  an  aged  worthy  Arab  in  a  green 
turban  with  a  long  white  beard,  rose  to  his  feet 
from  a  green  table,  lit  to  that  end  by  a  read- 
ing lamp,  where  he  had  unrolled  an  ancient 
Arabic  scroll.  The  ample  white  robes  of  a 
Bedouin  enfolded  him  like  a  cloud. 

Parsival  had  really  well  nigh  fallen  into  the 
error  of  taking  the  old  Arab  for  the  Almighty, 
concerning  whom  he  had  of  late  learnt  so  many 
mystic  and  wondrous  things.  But  before  he 
had  betrayed  himself  by  some  ill-considered 
question,  the  bookman  told  him  that  he  was 
an  Arab  searcher  and  sage,  who  for  more  than 
seventy  years  had  searched  all  the  parchments 
stored  there  for  the  deepest  secret  of  the  Grail, 
a  secret  he  was  striving  to  bring  into  accord 
with  the  Bible  of  the  Mohammedans,  the  sacred 
Koran. 

Both  Blancheflour's  and  ParsivaPs  courage 
sank  when  he  showed  them  the  endless  shelves 


78  Parsival 

of  books,  all  the  tomes  of  which  were  concerned 
with  the  Holy  Grail.  To  be  master  of  them  you 
would  have  assuredly  wanted  several  hundred 
years,  even  if  you  had  given  day  and  night 
wholly  and  solely  to  their  study.  But  Blanche- 
flour,  after  her  wont  in  such  matters,  forthwith 
called  upon  the  learned  bookman  to  deliver  a 
short  discourse  on  the  matters  of  greatest  im- 
port in  the  myth  of  the  Grail.  The  Arab  had 
bowed  his  head  over  his  parchments  again  when 
the  bookman  began. 


XI 

HE  bookman's  discourse: 

"When  Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  was 
nailed  to  the  cross  by  His  own 
people  at  Jerusalem,  a  fearful  deed 
that  has  fallen  to  the  lot  of  very  many  bearers 
of  salvation  at  the  hands  of  their  own  people, 
a  rich  and  worthy  man,  Joseph  of  Arimathea, 
bade  them,  after  some  interval  of  time,  take 
the  body  down  from  the  dishonourable  gallows, 
and  lay  it  to  rest  in  a  family  sepulchre  he  him- 
self had  made  ready  in  his  garden.  For  this 
deed  he  was  thrown  into  prison,  and  some  have 
averred  that  he  lived  forgotten  for  forty  years, 
in  prison  without  food  or  drink." 

"And  without  the  light  of  day,"  said  the  Arab. 

"Even  so,"  repeated  the  bookman,  somewhat 
angered,  "without  the  light  of  day  to  boot." 

"Vindicta  salvatoris,"  quoth  the  Arab,  but 
without  heeding  him  the  bookman  went  on 
with  his  discourse. 

79 


8o  Parsival 

"During  the  forty  years  of  his  imprisonment 
Joseph  of  Arimathea's  life  was  preserved  by 
heavenly  meat  and  heavenly  drink.  After  His 
Resurrection,  Jesus  Christ,  the  Saviour,  Him- 
self brought  a  gleaming  dish  of  crystal  into  his 
barred  and  bolted  cell,  a  vessel  in  which  neither 
meat  nor  drink  ever  failed.  This  vessel  is  called 
the  Grail.  Folk  have  debated  whence  this  vessel 
came.  What  alone  is  certain  is  that  at  the  hands 
of  the  Saviour,  it  came  to  do  wondrous  works, 
and  was  bestowed  for  a  gift  on  Joseph  of  Ari- 
mathea.  Some  say  the  Saviour's  sacred  Blood 
was  caught  in  this  vessel  when  they  took  the 
Body  from  the  cross." 

The  Arab  said:  "It  was  none  other  than  the 
paten  whereon  at  the  Last  Supper  that  Jesus 
took  with  His  disciples  the  Paschal  lamb,  the 
blessed  Paschal  meat,  was  laid." 

"Thereupon  I  am  about  to  touch,"  said  the 
bookman.  "My  thesis,  the  ductus  of  my  dis- 
course ..." 

"I  lean  in  general  to  the  view,"  said  the  Arab, 
"  that  the  Grail  was  the  cup  of  the  Last  Supper, 
and  by  no  means  the  dish." 


Parsival  81 

"Be  that  as  it  may,"  the  bookman  went  on, 
talking  the  Arab  down,  "Whether  cup  or  platter, 
it  hath,  it  may  be,  seemed  good  to  God's  al- 
mighty power  to  turn  the  twain  into  one.  How- 
ever it  may  be,  most  illustrious  Queen  Blanche- 
flour  and  noble  Sir  Knight,  in  the  Holy  Mass 
they  celebrate  in  the  cathedral  and  in  the  Chapel 
Royal,  we  have  an  afterglow  of  the  miracle  that 
was  wrought  on  Joseph  of  Arimathea  during  his 
imprisonment." 

"But  afterglow  only,"  said  the  Arab. 

"I  shall,"  quoth  the  bookman,  "deliver  my 
discourse  better  digested  at  a  more  convenient 
season,  most  illustrious  Queen.  If  Mass  and 
Grail  do  indeed  differ,  the  paten  nevertheless 
whereon  'the  Body  of  the  Lord'  is  distributed, 
has  at  times  and  seasons  wrought  not  less  won- 
drous works.  The  Grail,  'tis  true,  hath  re- 
mained a  secret.  Joseph  of  Arimathea  brought 
the  miraculous  vessel  with  him  from  Jersualem 
into  northern  lands,  whither,  on  his  release  from 
captivity,  he  fared  forth  from  Palestine.  But  no 
mortal  man  knows  for  certain  what  has  befallen 
the  vessel." 


82  Parsival 

"I  shall  soon  have  knowledge  thereof,"  said 
the  Arab.  "The  astronomers  have  foretold 
an  age  of  one  hundred  and  fifteen  years  for  me, 
and  I  need  at  the  utmost  ten  to  finish  my  studies. 
Even  then  I  should  be  only  a  hundred  and  one 
years  old,  and  I  should  then,  three  and  twenty 
years  before  my  death,  be  so  far  forward  as  to 
find  the  way  to  the  companionship  of  the  Grail 
and  to  the  Castle  of  the  Grail  blindfold." 

"What  is  the  companionship  of  the  Grail?" 
asked  Parsival. 

"Joseph  of  Arimathea  founded  it,"  said  the 
Arab.  "Eleven  companions  of  the  Grail  con- 
stitute it.  The  place  of  Joseph  of  Arimathea  is 
already  being  held  by  his  twenty  and  first  suc- 
cessor. The  name  of  the  Presbyter  or  Grail  King 
of  this  present  day  is,  as  I  have  now  ascertained 
for  certain,  Amfortas.  At  the  Round  Table, 
as  the  order  of  the  service  of  the  Grail,  instituted 
by  the  prophet  Jesus  Himself  ordains,  the  seat 
at  the  King's  right  hand  is  left  empty.  For 
eleven  hundred  years  they  have  been  awaiting 
the  Prophet's  coming  again." 

"Of  the  Christian  Saviour,"  said  the  book- 


Parsival  83 

man.  "Blind  pagans  at  best  have  traffic  with 
Allah  and  his  prophet." 

"I  see  more  things  than  thou,"  said  the  Arab, 
and  therewith  he  gazed  long  and  searchingly  at 
Parsival's  high  and  white  brow. 

"Forgive  me,  wise  man,"  said  the  bookman, 
"if  your  last  utterance  did  not  wholly  prevail 
to  set  my  doubts  at  rest." 

But  the  Arab,  without  turning  his  eyes  from 
Parsival,  made  an  end  of  speaking  in  somewhat 
solemn  fashion. 

"Heartache  lives  in  the  King's  heart.  The 
Keeper  of  the  Grail  is  wounded,  is  sick.  Am- 
fortas  awaits  his  son.  Come-who-may-come 
will  find  him." 

The  significance  of  these  words  escaped 
Blancheflour  in  some  measure.  All  the  deeper 
the  mark  they  left  on  Parsival.  As  she  took 
her  leave  the  young  Queen  said:  "You  should 
have  asked  Gornemant  concerning  the  Grail, 
his  ancestry,  and  his  present  abode.  The  news 
the  bookworms  have  given  us  leaves  me  ill 
content." 

Quoth  the  Knight:  "If  you  will  lend  me  your 


84  Parsival 

ear  for  the  space  of  an  hour  I  shall  make  you 
better  instructed.  The  debate  between  the  book- 
man and  the  Arab,  and  in  particular  the  latter's 
last  words,  have  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  dis- 
closed the  errors  and  misdeeds  of  my  past  life, 
what  I  have  lost  and  what  I  have  held.  Behold, 
Blancheflour,  the  Grail  was,  as  it  were,  laid  by 
my  cradle,  and  I  did  not  know  it,  nor  did  I  know 
how  to  be  worthy  of  it.  The  scales  have  now 
fallen  from  my  eyes." 


XII 

T  was  Blancheflour's  wish  to  wed 
Parsival,  and  it  therefore  irked  her 
to  mark  how  the  spirit  of  inward  dis- 
quiet, the  spirit  of  unrest,  regained 
its  dominion  over  him.  She  could  not  forbear 
fearing  lest  he  should  set  forth  before  the  wed- 
ding, so  as  to  make  atonement,  as  he  said,  for 
all  he  had  left  undone,  and  to  purge  himself  of 
all  the  errors  that  oppressed  him 

He  had  told  his  mistress  of  the  castle  of  the 
Grail  where  he  declared  he  had  been.  He  had 
spoken  of  Gornemant  as  a  paladin  of  the  Grail. 
He  had  told  her  much  of  the  piercing  cry  of  pain 
the  Grail  King  had  uttered  during  the  bloody 
office  of  the  Mass,  the  remembrance  of  which 
served  not  least  to  darken  and  confound  his 
counsel.  Oft  of  nights,  he  said,  he  had  heard 
this  cry  in  his  dreams,  and  had  thereby  been, 
as  it  were,  driven  forth  restlessly  up  and  down 
the  world.  Every  man,  he  held,  bears  his  pain 
8s 


86  Parsival 

as  long  as  he  needs  must,  and  man  alone  can 
set  free  his  fellow  man. 

"It  is  not  well,"  quoth  the  Dame  of  the  White 
Snood  to  Blancheflour,  "that  Parsival  should 
tangle  himself  in  these  fantasies  of  the  Grail. 
It  is  as  it  befell  Gornemant  aforetime.  In  like 
manner  his  spirit,  too,  began  to  play  the  will  o' 
the  wisp.  Then  he  fared  forth,  and  has  not 
come  back.  It  may,  I  know,  be,"  she  went  on, 
"that  he  is  perchance  yet  alive,  and  has,  maybe, 
in  truth,  given  your  Parsival  the  accolade 
somewhere  down  yonder  in  the  land  of  the 
Turks.  But  it  may  also  be  that  he  has  but  taken 
these  arms  from  some  wight  or  other  that 
stripped  Gornemant  of  them,  and  bore  them 
together  with  his  stolen  name.  The  more  I 
ponder  the  matter  the  harder  does  it  become  to 
believe  the  story  Parsival  has  told  us  of  his 
accolade  by  Gornemant.  The  simple  fellow  is 
labouring  under  the  fantasy  of  his  own  con- 
ceits. Gornemant  for  sure  died  long  ago,  bat- 
tling for  the  Holy  Sepulchre." 

As  far  as  that  Blancheflour's  doubts  did  not, 
it  is  true,  carry  her.  None  the  less  she  feared 


Parsival  87 

for  Parsival's  reason  when  he  told  her  in  all 
seriousness  that  Amfortas,  the  Keeper  and  King 
of  the  Grail,  was,  as  he  was  now  well  assured, 
his  bodily  father. 

In  long  debates  he  set  forth  to  her  by  what 
path  he  had  come  to  this  assurance.  "My 
mother,  Heartache's  spirit,  prevailed  to  safe- 
guard me  so  long  as  it  encompassed  me.  Be- 
yond these  limits  it  availed  nothing  for  my  weal. 
I  beheld  my  father  for  the  first  time  after  I 
had  restored  a  wounded  dove  to  its  nest.  Its 
pursuer,  a  falcon,  lay  pierced  by  an  arrow  at 
my  feet,  but  my  father,  who  at  that  moment 
put  on  the  likeness  of  a  fisherman,  was  busy 
angling  in  Heartache's  lake.  I  am  the  fish  he 
then  would  fain  have  caught. 

"I  saw  my  father  for  the  second  time  and  for 
the  third  time  shortly  before  and  shortly  after 
I  had  found  my  mother's  cot  a  heap  of  ashes, 
and  had  lost  Heartache  for  ever.  Once  again 
he  seemed  to  be  nothing  more  than  a  common 
fisherman,  but  he  had  only  doffed  the  ensigns 
of  his  high  office,  for  he  is,  and  at  that  time 
already  was,  King  of  the  Grail.  He  set  my  feet 


88  ParsM 

on  the  road  to  the  refuge  of  the  Holy  Castle 
Montsalvas. 

"I  beheld  the  Castle  and  beheld  the  Grail, 
and  ringing  in  my  ears,  I  still  hear  the  words, 
my  father,  as  King  of  the  Grail,  asked  me,  and 
the  answer  I  made  thereto.  'Dost  know  me?' 
asked  he,  and  I  thereon,  'Aye,  thou  art  mine 
enemy.'  Then  did  I  cast  away  the  Grail,  my 
father,  and  Heartache. 

"Having  been  given  the  accolade  by  Gorne- 
mant,  I  dreamed  this  dream  in  the  ferryman's 
hut.  The  falcon  in  my  casque  came  flying  to 
my  bed,  and  said  'Pluck  the  arrow  from  my 
breast,  Parsival.'  The  dove  on  my  shield  set 
herself  free.  She  fluttered  fearfully  above  my 
head,  and  said  'Pluck  the  arrow  from  the  golden 
falcon's  breast.'  'Thou  should'st  pluck  the 
arrow  from  the  falcon's  breast,'  said  the  fisher- 
man, and  likewise  drew  near  my  bed.  'What 
manner  of  fisherman  art  thou?'  I  asked.  'A 
fisher  of  men,'  he  made  answer,  'but  of  the 
whole  race  of  men  thou  art  the  catch  that  above 
all  others  I  must  bring  to  land.'  I  saw  my 
father  again  for  the  last  time,  sweet  Queen 


Parsival  89 

Blancheflour,  before  I  came  to  you  a  beaten 
and  a  vanquished  man.  None  other  than  he  was 
the  Sable  Knight  and  my  master  in  the  fray. 
He  wrought  his  best  and  his  last  for  his  froward 
son  by  a  first  well-judged  terrible  chastening. 
By  grace  thereof  I  was  brought  to  you,  and  in 
your  sweet  presence  the  wild  beast  of  the  forest 
first  grew  into  a  human  being  worthy  of  the 
name  of  man.  I  now  know,  for  the  first  time, 
how  every  fight  that  would  be  worthy  must  be 
fought  in  the  cause  of  peace  alone." 

Poor  sweet  Blackthorn  Blossom  could  make 
naught  of  all  this  tangled  skein.  She  was  fain 
to  wed  him,  fain  to  make  him  King,  and  she 
would  fain  be  the  one  keeper  and  inmate  of 
his  soul.  "Set  me  free,  set  free  your  poor 
Blancheflour  that  loves  you  with  every  fiber  of 
her  heart,"  she  cried.  Then  he  told  her  of  his 
resolve  to  go  in  quest  of  the  King  of  the  Grail 
and  to  release  him  from  his  pain.  He  would  have, 
he  said,  no  peace  either  by  day  or  night  until  the 
arrow  were  plucked  from  the  golden  falcon's 
breast. 

Meantime    at    Blancheflour's    instance,    all 


po  Parsival 

things  were  made  ready  in  haste  for  the  wedding 
feast,  and  she  prevailed  upon  Parsival  to  agree 
to  their  marriage.  The  knight  thenceforward 
seemed  to  be  content  with  his  lot,  and  the  Grail, 
as  well  as  all  that  turned  thereon,  was  put  behind 
the  joy  of  the  passing  day.  At  length  all  things 
were  made  ready,  and  amid  the  pealing  of  bells 
and  the  rejoicings  of  the  people,  Blancheflour, 
crowned  with  myrtle,  was  led  at  the  side  of  the 
fairest  man  to  the  church  and  altar  where  they 
plighted  their  troth,  and  the  priest  blessed  their 
wedlock. 

On  the  evening  of  the  feast  day  the  blissful 
pair  had  gone  to  rest  together.  On  the  morrow 
Blancheflour  awoke  and  found  her  husband's 
place  empty.  They  made  search  for  Parsival, 
but  the  day  passed,  and  day  after  day  passed 
by,  and  no  man  was  able  to  find  him.  The 
Queen  fell  sick  unto  death,  and  when  she  was 
made  whole  again,  and  new  strength  was  re- 
turned to  her,  it  seemed  as  though  she  had 
grown  older  by  ten  years. 

Folk  hardly  knew  her  again,  so  pale  and  hag- 
gard did  she  look  in  her  black  widow's  weeds. 


xni 

O  Sir  Parsival  had  stolen  away  by 
stealth. 

Before  break  of  day  he  had  sad- 
dled his  mettled  black  stallion  with 
his  own  hand,  had  donned  his  arms  and  other 
harness,  and  had  ridden  forth  into  the  night. 

In  the  cathedral,  amid  the  plighting  of  his 
troth,  his  ears  had  rung  with  quite  other  melodies 
from  the  far-off  secret  church,  and  during  the 
wedding  feast,  amid  all  the  carousings  and  re- 
joicings, he  had  in  spirit  of  a  sudden  beheld  the 
banner  with  the  Crown  of  Thorns  and  had  heard 
Amfortas's  cry  of  pain. 

But  when  darkness  fell,  and  the  halls  and 
chambers  of  the  Castle  were  ablaze  with  lights, 
a  lamentable  wind  sprang  up  round  about  the 
house,  and  borne  on  its  breath  Sir  Parsival  never 
ceased  to  hear  the  word  "Heartache,"  "Heart- 
ache." 

Then  Parsival  said  within  himself:  "So  long 
91 


92  Parsival 

as  I  have  left  my  mother's  cry  and  my  father's 
anguish  unstilled,  there  can  be  no  happiness  for 
me,"  and  therefore,  deep  as  it  cut  him  to  the 
soul,  he  must  needs  forsake  his  young  wife.  He 
had  now  for  many  a  long  day  been  wandering 
to  and  fro  up  and  down  the  world,  but  he  had 
never  for  a  moment  doubted  that  he  would 
find  the  way  to  the  Castle  of  the  Grail  again, 
for  did  it  not  lie  not  very  far  away  from  the 
spot  where  Heartache's  cot  had  stood?  But 
even  to  find  this  country  again  was,  as  the  issue 
soon  showed,  none  too  light  a  task. 

In  the  end  he  did  indeed  find  this  heap  of 
ashes  without  being  wholly  aware  how  long  he 
had  spent  on  the  journey.  As  he  beheld  the 
place  of  the  sad  ruins  again,  Parsival  wept.  He 
wept  long  ere  he  set  out  on  the  quest  anew.  He 
soon  came  to  Heartache's  lake,  but  thence- 
forward everything  seemed  to  mock  the  happen- 
ings of  the  past  that  stuck  so  closely  in  his  re- 
membrance. 

He  had  hoped  within  himself  to  fall  in  here 
with  his  father  in  the  guise  of  a  fisherman,  but 
far  as  the  eye  could  range  over  the  black,  un- 


Parsival  93 

moved  face  of  the  water,  there  was  no  human 
being  in  sight.  Only  here  and  there  fish  were 
leaping  above  the  surface,  and  seemed,  undis- 
turbed by  beavers  or  fish-eating  birds,  unscared 
by  human  beings,  to  have  multiplied  in  the 
meantime  a  thousand  fold.  For  days  and  days 
Parsival  rode  along  the  shore,  without  reaching 
the  end  of  the  lake,  and  without  finding  the  place 
where  the  river  ran  into  it.  Over  and  over 
again  did  he  ponder  the  matter,  and  rehearsed 
most  closely  to  himself  how  everything  had 
befallen  when  on  that  night  of  despair  he  had, 
at  the  fisherman's  bidding,  not  failed  to  find 
the  way  to  the  Castle,  and  over  and  over  again, 
as  he  looked  out  on  the  country  now  wholly 
foreign  to  him,  he  grew  distraught  and  saddened 
to  hopelessness. 

In  some  such  season  as  this  a  strange  thing 
befell  him.  The  shores  of  the  lake  at  the  spot 
where  he  chanced  to  be  drew  somewhat  nearer 
together.  Then,  on  the  further  shore  of  the  lake, 
he  became  aware,  or  thought  he  was  aware,  of 
a  woman  with  unbraided  hair  in  beggar's  rags, 
who,  so  it  seemed  to  him,  was  beckoning  to  him 


94  Parsival 

feverishly.  She  called  out,  and  although  her 
voice  could  not  carry  to  Parsival's  ear,  the 
young  man  who  was  now  beckoning  in  answer 
to  her,  shouted  back  as  loud  as  he  could.  Then 
she  pointed  to  a  spot  on  the  shores  of  the  lake 
which  Parsival,  so  he  understood  it,  was  to 
make  so  as  to  fall  in  with  her.  A  little  shudder 
shook  him.  None  the  less  he  turned  his  horse 
thither.  When  he  had  ridden  a  long  way  at  a 
fast  pace  and  looked  up,  he  had  lost  sight  of  the 
woman  on  the  other  bank. 

The  self-same  thing  happened  again  after  the 
knight,  errant  in  good  truth,  had  come  to  the 
very  spot  where  the  ragged,  beckoning  woman 
had  first  shown  herself.  She  was  now  standing 
on  the  other  shore,  and  was  beckoning  and 
calling  from  the  place  where  he  had  been  before 
he  first  caught  sight  of  his  strange  quarry.  He 
pricked  his  ears  and  listened  with  strained  in- 
tentness  to  catch  the  faintest  sound  of  her  voice 
across  the  breadth  of  the  silent  lake,  and  in  very 
deed,  so  it  seemed  to  him — his  blood  froze  round 
his  heart — the  word  "Heartache"  was  borne 
long-drawn  across  the  water.  "Here  am  I," 


Parsival  95 

he  shouted  back.  "I  am  Parsival,"  and  the 
woods  gave  back  his  voice.  Thereupon  the 
chase  began  afresh,  and  its  upshot  was  that, 
believing  he  was  riding  towards  the  stranger, 
he  again  found  himself  alone  in  the  spot  whence 
he  had  first  set  out. 

When  Parsival  had  resolved  to  make  an  end 
of  this  strange  and  disquieting  chase,  he  did 
not  know  for  certain  how  long  it  had  lasted. 
He  now  gave  up  all  hope  of  ever  learning  whether 
the  whole  matter  were  a  phantasm,  or  what 
meaning  was  hidden  behind  the  phantasm.  It 
now  seemed  to  him  as  if  he  had  wholly  lost  the 
road  towards  the  Castle  of  the  Grail,  and  that 
he  had  to  set  forth  on  one  wholly  in  the  oppo- 
site direction.  Before  long  he  was  back  in  the 
world  of  his  fellow  men,  but  among  a  people 
whose  tongue  he  could  not  understand,  whence 
it  became  clear  to  him  that  he  had  again  ridden 
at  misadventure.  He  struck  into  the  forest 
afresh,  and  there  on  the  third  or  fourth  day  of 
his  wayfaring  fell  in  with  a  hermit. 

Moved  by  the  frankness  of  sore  distress,  he 
asked  the  hermit,  who  entreated  him  hospi- 


96  Parsival 

tably  to  his  simple  fare,  whether  he  could  not 
set  his  feet  on  the  right  road  to  the  Castle  of 
the  Grail  and  to  the  Holy  Sepulchre  itself.  But 
the  old  man  only  shook  his  head.  Parsival, 
meantime,  went  on  after  the  manner  of  a  con- 
fessional to  pour  out  the  many  straits  and  dis- 
illusionments  of  his  life.  In  the  end  the  hermit 
made  answer:  "If  I  can  tell  thee  naught  touching 
the  road  to  the  Grail,  nevertheless  I  now  know 
that  thou  art  he  concerning  whom  other  pilgrims 
have  enquired  of  me,  for  they  sought  to  learn 
whether  a  knight  in  quest  of  the  road  to  the 
Holy  Grail  had  passed  by.  And  now  tell  me  by 
what  name  men  call  thee.  Art  called  Parsival?  " 

"From  my  childhood  upwards,"  the  Knight 
made  answer. 

"That  was  the  name,"  the  hermit  went  on, 
"and  so  art  thou  none  other  than  he  they 
sought." 

"Who  were  they  that  enquired  after  the  seeker 
for  the  Grail,  and  what  the  manner  of  their 
bearing?"  asked  Parsival. 

"The  first  to  enquire  after  thee — but  that  is 
a  good  twenty  or  thirty  years  ago — carried  a 


Parsival  97 

rod,  and  together  therewith  a  basket  of  fresh 
water  fishes,  and  I  therefore  had  of  necessity  to 
set  him  down  for  a  fisherman.  Perchance  he 
had  fallen  on  evil  days,  but  from  his  countenance 
and  noble  bearing  he  was,  meseemed,  a  man  of 
gentle  birth." 

"My  father,  and  none  other,"  quoth  Parsival. 

The  monk  went  on:  "Not  long  afterwards,  a 
woman  enquired  after  Parsival,  but  not,  as  I 
mind  me  now,  after  the  seeker  of  the  Grail.  It 
is  only  a  short  time  ago  since  the  woman  after 
many  years,  passed  by  anew."  "Did  she  put 
the  question  for  Parsival,  the  seeker  of  the 
Grail?  " 

"  She  spoke  of  him  as  of  a  boy  that  had  run 
away  from  home,  and  had  become  entangled  in 
error,  need,  and  tribulation." 

"I  am  that  boy,  and  it  was  my  mother,  Heart- 
ache," quoth  Parsival,  "and  I  must  now  to 
horse  for  to  overtake  her." 

"  But  thou  art  no  boy,"  said  the  hermit.  " The 
wayfaring  woman  that  passed  by  here  half 
naked  and  distraught,  and  dragging  a  sack 
of  flints  behind  her,  cannot  therefore  well  be 


98  Parsival 

thy  mother,  nor  canst  thou  be  the  boy  for  whom 
she  was  seeking." 

"When  I  forsook  my  mother,  I  was  less  than 
fifteen.  I  am  no  more  than  eighteen  years  of 
age  this  day,"  quoth  Parsival. 

From  the  little  forest  shrine  that  he  had  him- 
self built,  the  hermit  then  fetched  the  silver 
paten,  the  platter  on  which  he  was  wont  to 
give  the  wafer  of  the  Holy  Supper  to  the  poor 
charcoal  burners  dwelling  round  about.  It  was 
well  burnished,  and  Parsival  could  behold  him- 
self therein  as  in  a  mirror. 

"Witchcraft!  "  he  cried,  "My  hair  has  grown 
white  overnight,"  and  because  he  glared  at  the 
hermit  fiercely  and  distrustfully  with  eyes  that 
yet  were  young,  the  other  with  a  sly  smile 
made  answer: 

"Time — not  I — is  the  magician,  Sir  Knight. 
That  stealthy  witch,  Time,  hath  turned  thee 
grey.  Let  not  this  change  in  the  course  of  thy 
wayfaring  and  in  the  eternal  changefulness  of 
all  things  touch  thee  nearly.  Hearken  rather 
to  what  I  may  have  yet  to  tell  of  the  third  that 
came  to  enquire  after  the  seeker  for  the  Grail." 


Parsival  99 

Thereupon  he  told  of  a  Knight  behind  a  black 
visor  that  had  borne  a  golden  dove  for  sole  de- 
vice on  his  sable  mail.  And  once  again  Parsival 
must  perforce  believe  that  it  was  the  Grail 
King  and  his  father  in  one  and  the  same  person. 
The  hermit  laughed  yet  louder,  and  said:  "Sir 
Knight,  it  cannot  be  that  ye  are  the  son  of  two 
fathers." 

Parsival  flung  himself  on  his  horse,  for  he  held 
the  hedge  priest  to  be  in  truth  a  magician.  He 
is  mocking  and  poisoning  me,  he  thought,  with 
treachery  and  deceit. 

But  he  was  now  minded  to  put  all  else  from 
him  for  a  season,  and  to  see  Blancheflour,  his 
forsaken  young  wife,  once  more. 


XIV 

HE  cathedral  bells,  and  the  bells  of 
all  the  rest  of  the  churches,  were 
tolling  when  Parsival  came  to  the 
gate  of  the  city,  over  which,  though 
Blancheflour  had  exalted  him  to  be  its  king, 
he  had  never  ruled. 

"What  do  the  bells  mean?"  asked  Parsival 
of  a  burgher  who  chanced  to  pass  by. 

"Our  aged  Queen  is  being  borne  for  burial," 
quoth  the  man. 

"What  old  Queen  is  this?"  asked  the  Knight. 
"But  a  year  ago  ye  had  to  my  knowing  a  very 
youthful  damsel  for  your  Queen." 

"There  in  truth  ye  are  in  error,"  said  the  com- 
fortable burgher.  "Our  widowed  Queen  entered 
upon  the  fiftieth  year  of  her  age  this  very  year," 
and  every  man  knows  that  she  has  been  widowed 
for  thirty  years  at  the  least." 
"I  have  knocked  at  the  wrong  door  then," 


Parsival  101 

Parsival  made  answer.  "For  the  rest,  what  was 
the  name  of  your  widowed  ruler?" 

"She  was  called  Blancheflour.  Her  missing 
husband's  name  was  Parsival.  Thirty  years 
ago  he  left  her  on  the  morrow  after  their  wed- 
ding." 

"Is  not  the  whole  of  earthly  life  a  nightmare 
dream?"  thought  Parsival,  as  the  long  kingly 
mourning  train  passed  out  beyond  the  gates. 

The  crypt  of  this  city's  sovereign  house  was  a 
marble  temple,  built  in  a  little  cypress  grove 
without  the  walls.  Many  torches  were  ablaze. 
Twelve  knights  bore  Blancheflour,  in  accord 
with  the  custom  of  the  times,  on  an  open  bier. 

"Aye,  thou  hast  now  become  Blackthorn 
Blossom  in  very  truth,"  thought  Parsival,  as  he 
gazed  on  the  well-remembered  face,  now  white 
as  fine  linen  under  the  parting  of  white  hair. 

She  had  the  aspect  of  an  old  woman,  yet  of  a 
bride  withal.  For,  agreeably  to  her  last  wish, 
they  had  arrayed  her  hi  her  bridal  robes  of  white 
samite,  and  wrapped  her  in  clouds  of  green  veils. 
Sprays  and  posies  of  the  white  sloe  blossom  were 
wrought  in  fine  needlework  over  all  her  garments. 


io2  Parsival 

Parsival  was  minded  to  fling  himself  on  the  bier 
and  on  the  dead,  but  to  his  terror  he  was  aware 
that  he  could  neither  utter  sound,  nor  stir  hand 
or  foot. 

Of  a  sudden  someone  beckoned  to  him.  It 
was  the  learned  Arab. 

After  the  convoy  had  passed  beyond  the 
gates,  the  Knight  had  alighted  from  his  horse, 
and  had  made  it  fast  somewhere.  Now  on  sight 
of  the  Arab,  his  power  of  movement  was  of  a 
sudden  restored  to  him,  and  he  was  thereupon 
aware  that  he  was  walking  in  grave  state  behind 
the  bier  on  the  left  of  the  man  in  the  white  tur- 
ban. Amid  the  clanging  of  bells,  and  the  chant- 
ing of  the  priests,  the  while  the  birds  were  sing- 
ing, and  the  dust  of  the  high  road  choking  their 
nostrils,  the  Arab  spoke  to  Parsival  in  the  un- 
moved voice  of  one  who  tells  a  tale: 

"I  can  tell  by  thy  bearing  that  thou  hast  not 
found  the  road  to  the  Grail.  As  concerning 
myself  I  am  one  hundred  and  twenty  years  old 
this  day,  older  than  the  star-gazers  foretold, 
and  had  Blancheflour  lived  but  one  year  more, 
I  should  have  known  how  to  lead  her  blindfold 


Parsival  103 

to  the  road  to  the  Grail.  For  I  would  have  thee 
know  that  she  never  ceased  brooding  all  the  time 
that  thou  wert  gone,  save  only  about  the  way  to 
the  Grail,  not,  I  fear  me,  for  the  rightful  purpose 
of  finding  the  holy  mystery  of  the  Lord,  but  of 
seeing  thee,  poor  Parsival,  again.  I  learnt  of  the 
planets,  but  I  never  made  it  known  to  Blanche- 
flour,  that  thou  would'st  come  back  on  the 
third  day  after  her  death  without  having  found 
the  Grail." 

Parsival  asked:  "Who  is  the  Knight  in  silver 
harness  with  the  silver  swan  on  his  casque,  that, 
like  to  the  sun-god,  rides  on  a  horse  white  as 
snow  behind  the  bier?  " 

"That  is  Lohengrin,"  said  the  Arab.  "It  is 
thy  son.  But  I  counsel  thee  not  to  make  thyself 
known  to  him.  The  most  kindly  heart  beats 
in  his  breast,  and  all  the  world  loves  him  and 
cherishes  him.  One  man  alone  he  hates  and 
seeks  as  for  his  bitterest  foe,  for  him  that  did 
his  mother  hurt  beyond  all  healing." 

Then  Parsival  took  himself  out  of  the  con- 
voy, and  let  the  weeping  people  pass  in  endless 
train  behind  the  good  Queen's  coffin,  to  her 


IO4  Parsival 

grave.  Where  all  men  were  weeping,  none 
marked  it  that  Parsival  was  likewise  bathed  in 
tears. 

Parsival  had  forsaken  his  mother  to  battle 
against  the  world.  When  he  turned  back  he 
never  found  her  more.  He  forsook  the  Grail, 
which,  when  it  was  borne  past  him,  he  did  not 
know  for  what  it  was,  and  when  he  did,  or  at 
least  guessed  what  it  might  be,  he  never  prevailed 
to  find  again.  Intent  to  find  it,  he  forsook  his 
young  wife,  and  cast  away  an  earthly  kingdom; 
for  when  he  came  back  he  found  his  wife  no 
more,  and  his  own  son  a  stranger  to  him,  who 
knew  him  as  little  as  all  the  rest  of  them — save 
the  old  Arab — and  from  him  he  must  needs  flee 
as  from  an  enemy. 

After  all  these  errors  and  tribulations  of  his 
earthly  life,  it  would  seem  as  if  something  like 
to  a  spring  too  tautly  strained  had  snapped  in 
Parsival's  soul.  The  most  exceeding  anguish 
of  a  wild  despair  that  had  driven  him  out  anew 
from  the  company  of  men  into  waste  places  of 
a  sudden  surceased  in  a  state  of  the  deepest 
numbness.  In  a  glade  in  the  midst  of  the  forest 


Parsival  105 

he  alit  from  his  erstwhile  fiery  steed,  took 
the  bridle  from  its  mouth,  the  saddle  from  off 
its  back,  and  with  a  touch  of  a  switch  gave  it 
the  freedom  of  the  woods.  For  himself  he  doffed 
his  helm,  and  hung  it  up  together  with  his  sword, 
shield,  and  breastplate,  in  the  branches  of  an 
oak. 

Thence  the  golden  falcon  with  the  arrow 
through  its  breast  now  gazed  down  like  owner- 
less treasures  on  the  wild  denizens  of  the  wood. 
But  Sir  Parsival  was  left  unharnessed  and  un- 
armed. When  he  left  the  place  barefooted  and 
clad  in  his  shift  alone,  night  had  fallen,  the 
moon  had  climbed  the  tree-tops.  A  wind  sprang 
up,  and  the  Knight  threw  a  last  farewell  look 
on  the  treasures  of  his  knight  errantry,  clanging 
spectre-like  in  the  breeze. 

Thenceforward  Parsival  became  a  serving 
man.  He  served  as  a  bearer  of  burdens  in  cities, 
as  a  serf  in  the  hard  forced  labour  of  the  country- 
side. No  man  knew  him.  Aye,  he  himself  had 
forgotten  his  own,  but  not  his  mother's,  Heart- 
ache's name.  Although  he  no  longer  sought  to 
find  her,  she  seemed  to  him  to  be  wondrously 


io6  Parsival 

more  fond  and  near  than  ever  before.  His 
fellows,  the  other  grooms  and  porters,  soon  came 
to  take  him  for  an  old  simpleton,  because  he 
was  passing  gentle,  and  was  oft-times  wont  to 
speak  to  them  of  a  thing  beyond  their  under- 
standing, of  the  beauty  of  the  Grail. 


XV 

T  was  an  autumn  day,  and  the  poor, 
long-suffering  Bearer  of  Burdens, 
erst-while  Parsival,  had  finished  his 
day's  work  in  the  harbour  of  a  cer- 
tain town,  and  was  giving  ear  to  the  talk  among 
the  other  wage-earning  men  who  were  making 
holiday.  Their  talk  was  of  the  prowess  of  a 
knight  who  of  late  had  made  himself  of  great  re- 
nown in  the  world,  and  bore  on  his  shield  the 
words:  "To  the  strong  defiance,  for  the  weak  de- 
fence." Of  him  folk  told  many  strange  tales  that 
singled  him  out  from  all  the  rest  of  those  to  whom 
knight  errantry,  as  men  termed  it,  had  brought 
equal  renown.  All  the  world  ran  to  him  for 
aid,  as  to  a  mailed  archangel,  an  angel  of  jus- 
tice sent  of  God.  The  poor  folk  far  and  wide 
surnamed  him  "Sir  Good-at-Need." 

Not  once  nor  twice,  but  a  hundred  times,  had 
Sir  Good-at-Need  acted  after  the  pattern  of  the 
Good  Samaritan.  He  used  to  lift  the  sick  and 

107 


io8  Parsival 

wretched  objects  of  all  sorts  who  chanced  to 
cross  his  path  on  his  snow-white  steed,  to  carry 
them,  walking  himself  at  his  horse's  head  the 
while,  where  help  and  succour  awaited  them. 
He  used  to  wend  his  way  into  the  very  humblest 
cottages,  even  though  he  had  to  bare  his  curly 
head,  carry  his  casque  under  his  arm,  and  bend 
himself  very  low.  He  scattered  gold  as  largesse 
broadcast  and  gingerbreads  for  handsel,  and 
children,  above  all  others,  ran  after  him. 

His  fellow  knights  as  a  body,  and  the  rich  in 
the  land,  looked  on  him  askance,  and  their  hate 
grew  the  hotter  the  more  that  the  love  of  the 
common  people  turned  to  him. 

"There  ye  have  true  chivalry,"  said  the  Bearer 
of  Burdens  on  a  sudden,  after  he  had  learnt  of 
all  these  matters.  "He  stands  in  grace.  Would 
my  lot  had  been  as  kind  while  I  was  yet  knight 
errant.  Whoso  bears  arms  must  needs  be  a 
harbinger  of  mercy  and  of  peace,  else  is  he  re- 
creant, nothing  less." 

At  these  words  of  the  poor  Bearer  of  Burdens 
his  fellow  workmen  broke  into  laughter.  "If 
thou  wert  knight  errant  may  the  devil  fly  away 


Parsival  109 

with  me  if  I  were  not  the  terrible  Parsival, 
Queen  Blancheflour's  man." 

Thereupon,  after  they  had  guffawed  anew, 
another  said:  "Never,  for  sure,  was  knight 
so  fierce  and  cruel  as  Parsival,"  and  now  the 
poor  Bearer  of  Burdens  was  listening  to  his  own 
bloody  story.  It  was,  of  course,  full  of  false 
witness;  for,  knowing  nothing  of  the  causes  that 
had  moved  him,  they  said  that  Parsival  had 
been  crafty,  treacherous,  and  cruel,  a  liar  and 
an  adventurer.  The  Evil  One,  himself,  to 
whom  he  had  bartered  himself,  had  made  away 
with  him.  For  the  rest,  so  they  all  bellowed,  one 
louder  than  the  other,  Parsival  was  a  bonds- 
man's son;  he  was  not  of  gentle  birth. 

The  poor  Bearer  of  Burdens  only  smiled  the 
while  they  defamed  his  past.  He  thought  within 
himself,  I  have  deserved  this  and  more  also,  but 
now  I  wait  patiently  trusting  in  God  for  grace. 

Meantime  a  third  of  his  mates  had  let  fall 
some  words  concerning  Sir  Good-at-Need  that 
made  him  pay  close  heed  anew:  "This  same 
knight  Sir  Good-at-Need  is  not  only  a  chirurgeon 
who  can  staunch  wounds,  but  one  that  can  deal 


1 10  Parsival 

them  no  less  shrewdly  than  Parsival.  For  he 
is,  wit  ye  well,  in  quest  of  one  that  dealt  his 
mother  a  secret  hurt,  and  if  he  find  him,  woe 
betide  him.  I  would  liefer  lie  in  the  deepest 
dungeon  of  Turkey  than  be  the  miscreant  he 
seeks." 

Towards  evening  of  the  morrow  Sir  Good-at- 
Need  came  riding  into  the  town  amid  the  re- 
joicings of  the  common  people.  They  shouted 
"  Hosannah ! "  strewed  flowers  and  green  branches 
in  his  path,  and  one  or  two  women  were  carried 
so  far  by  vain  superstition  as  to  fling  themselves 
before  his  horse  for  it  to  step  over  them.  They 
fondly  believed  to  be  healed  thereby  of  their 
incurable  ills.  It  seemed  to  be  an  odd  chance 
that  the  knight,  on  coming  to  the  harbour,  called 
from  his  saddle,  of  all  men,  to  the  poor  Bearer 
of  Burdens,  and  bade  him  show  him  the  way. 

Poor  unknown  Parsival  had  meantime  passed 
through  the  most  terrible  hours  and  moments 
of  his  life.  He  was  well  aware  that  Sir  Good-at- 
Need  was  none  other  than  his  son,  Lohengrin, 
and  feared  to  be  made  known  to  him  for  the  man 
who  had  despoiled  his  mother,  Blancheflour, 


Parsival  in 

of  her  life's  happiness,  and  had  done  her  slow 
and  deadly  hurt.  Death  at  the  hands  of  his 
son  did  not  seem  to  him  the  worst  of  all;  but  a 
veritable  agony  of  horror  overtook  him  at  the 
thought  that  he  should  be  hated  and  spurned 
for  his  worst  enemy  by  the  man  whose  father 
he  was  and  whom  he  loved.  Therefore  he  made 
a  miserable  object  in  the  knight's  eyes,  as  he 
made  answer  after  this  fashion. 

"If  thou  art  knight  errant,  and  thou  askest 
of  none  other  than  of  me  to  point  thee  the  road 
thou  shouldst  take,  may  God  grant  me  to  set 
thee  right.  Make  no  more  quest  for  him  that 
did  thy  mother  secret  hurt." 

"I  give  thee  thanks  for  thy  counsel,  old  man," 
said  Lohengrin,  with  hearty  kindliness,  but  the 
Bearer  of  Burdens  went  on:  "And  now  in  token 
of  peace,  alight  from  thy  horse,  break  bread 
with  me,  and  suffer  me  to  tell  thee  certain  mat- 
ters concerning  the  Holy  Grail  and  concerning 
Parsival." 

At  the  outset  Lohengrin  thought  that  some 
mischance  or  other  had  turned  the  old  porter's 
brain,  but  when  he  heard  him  touch  on  the  name 


H2  Parsival 

of  Parsival  and  on  the  Holy  Grail  he  was  re- 
solved to  do  the  weak  old  man's  pleasure.  He 
lifted  him  on  his  steed,  and  led  the  horse  by  its 
bridle  rein  to  the  door  of  the  wretched  hut  of 
planks  where  his  poor  Lazarus  purposed  to  sup 
with  him. 

So  Parsival  was  now  seated  on  the  milk-white 
steed  of  his  beloved  son,  Lohengrin,  without 
the  other  misdoubting  who  he  was.  What 
wonder  that  for  secret  joy  he  wept  salt  tears 
that  would  not  be  denied. 

The  while  the  meal  lasted  the  shining  paladin, 
beloved  of  God,  was  alone  with  his  unknown 
father.  When  they  had  broken  bread  together 
and  had  taken  the  first  sup  from  the  common 
cup,  they  both  heard  the  sound  of  bells,  and 
forthwith  were  aware  that  the  sound  did  not 
come  from  any  cathedral  in  the  town.  Parsival, 
the  old  Bearer  of  Burdens,  then  knew  that  grace, 
love,  and  reconciliation  were  now  close  at  hand, 
and  he  began  to  tell  of  his  own  wayfarings  as 
if  of  those  of  another  man.  He  spoke  of  Heart- 
ache, Parsival's  mother.  He  named  her  as 
though  illumined  of  the  spirit,  the  All-Mother. 


Parsival  113 

Blancheflour,  too,  he  said,  no  less  than  Parsival, 
would  have  been  of  Heartache's  stock.  He  made 
an  end  of  speaking.  "Thou  and  I,  we  two,  are 
of  Heartache's  stock,  my  son." 

And  the  knight  now  learnt  the  nearer  hap  and 
mishap  of  Parsival,  how  he  set  forth  to  avenge 
his  mother  on  his  father;  he  heard  tell  of  the 
Grail  that  Parsival  found  and  lost  again,  of 
Gornemant  and  of  the  sick  Amfortas,  who  was 
Parsival's  father,  and  therewith  Lohengrin's 
grandsire.  It  was  revealed  to  him  what  had 
befallen  Parsival  at  the  hands  of  the  fisherman 
and  of  the  Sable  Knight;  how  his  father's  loving- 
kindness  had  striven  first  by  counsel  and  then 
by  force  to  set  his  feet  in  the  right  way. 

"My  hour  hath  now  come,"  quoth  Parsival, 
Bearer  of  Burdens.  "Meseemeth,  as  if  I  had 
ever  had  Heartache  encompassing  me  round 
about  unseen,  and  I  shall  furthermore  fall  in 
with  her  over  yonder  whither  I  shall  fare.  And 
if  she  was  stark  and  stem  and  oft-times  dealt 
harshly  with  me,  yet  she  brought  me  into  the 
world,  and  what  man  is  there  that  would  not 
love  his  mother?  Heartache,  Heartache  every- 


ii4  Parsival 

where!  I  have  sought  for  her,  and  have  found 
her  in  full  measure.  But  Salvator  is  yonder,  the 
Castle  of  the  Grail  with  its  paladins,  and  the 
secret  dome  that  is  made  two-fold  in  the  broad 
stream  of  life.  Salvator  is  there,  where  God- 
like beings  of  their  own  free  will  suffer  torment 
to  the  end  that  they  may  release  the  world  from 
its  burden,  and  yet  are  immortal  in  the  light  of 
their  near-by  Paradise." 

Lohengrin  gave  thanks  to  the  old  man,  whose 
avowal  had  moved  him  deeply,  and  rode  off 
thence  into  solitary  places. 


XVI 

UT  Parsival,  Bearer  of  Burdens,  did 
not  cease  to  hear  the  bells  of  the 
Grail  pealing  louder,  and  ever 
louder.  He  smiled  quietly,  and 
thought  within  himself:  "Now  get  thee  gone. 
Thy  time  hath  now  come,  serf  Parsival." 

And  the  aged  messenger  of  the  Grail,  Gorne- 
mant,  followed  by  a  little  knightly  train,  was 
bending  low,  even  now  entering,  into  the  hut. 
One  and  all  within  that  wretched  hovel  they  bent 
the  knee  before  Parsival,  the  poor  Bearer  of 
Burdens,  who  rose  to  his  feet  to  greet  them,  and 
awaited  their  embassage. 

"Amfortas,  thy  father,  the  twenty  and  first 
keeper  of  the  Grail,  hath  sent  us.  Twenty  have 
passed  before  him  in  the  world,  and  of  them  more 
than  half  have  passed  before  him  into  the  King- 
dom of  Heaven.  This  day  Amfortas  hath  doffed 
the  crown  of  Salvator  from  his  head.  His 

"5 


n6  Parsival 

piercing  cry  of  pain  is  likewise  stilled.  Never 
more  will  he  offer  up  the  godlike  sacrifice. 

"He  sends  thee  greeting,  and  bids  me  deliver 
this  embassage:  'My  son,  Parsival,  the  Grail  is 
in  the  world  an  alien  miracle.  Many  say  Sal- 
vator  is  a  realm  founded  in  the  air,  because, 
so  they  say,  peace  dwells  above  the  clouds  but 
war  upon  earth.  Now,  Parsival,  in  the  air  are 
lightnings,  the  fruitful  rain,  the  radiance  of  the 
light,  of  the  stars,  of  the  moon,  of  the  dawn, 
and  of  the  sunset.  What  man  could  live  and 
not  drink  air?  Who  without  air  could  see  and 
hear?  Who  could  think,  believe,  know  aught  of 
God  and  of  the  world,  were  his  playground  not 
the  free  realm  of  the  spirit?  So  deem,  and  thou 
wilt,  the  world,  the  Grail,  peace  and  Salvator, 
to  be  no  more  than  a  realm  of  the  air,  if  but  we 
believe  that  with  its  secret  churches,  its  peace, 
its  bliss,  and  its  shining  paladins,  it  is.  The 
world  is  Heartache's.  Salvator  belongs  to  bliss. 
But  even  as  bliss  hath  come  into  the  world  in 
the  guise  of  heavenly  faith,  so  Heartache,  too, 
has  ever  been  a  guest  in  Salvator.' 

"Dost  thou  believe  in  reconciliation  by  the 


Parsival  117 

Grail,  in  Salvator,  and  in  the  secret  church, 
Parsival?" 

"I  do  believe  therein,"  quoth  the  Bearer  of 
Burdens  with  shining  eyes. 

"Then  fall  down  upon  thy  knees,"  Gorne- 
mant  went  on,  "that  at  thy  sire's  behest  we 
may  set  upon  thy  head  the  crown  of  joy  and 
sorrow  of  the  Grail." 


'T^HE  following  pages  contain  advertisements  of 
books  on  kindred  subjects. 


NEW   MACMILLAN   PLAYS 


Children  of  the  Earth 


BY  ALICE  BROWN 

AUTHOR  OF  "MY  LOVE  AND  I,"  ETC. 

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This  is  the  ten  thousand  dollar  American  prize  play.  From  thou- 
sands of  manuscripts  submitted  to  Mr.  Ames  of  the  Little  Theatre, 
Miss  Brown's  was  chosen  as  being  the  most  notable,  both  in  theme 
and  characterization.  Miss  Brown  has  a  large  following  as  novelist 
and  short  story  writer,  and  there  is  no  doubt  but  that  her  play  will 
be  found  to  exhibit  those  rare  qualities  of  writing  and  those  keen 
analyses  of  human  motives  which  have  given  her  eminence  in  other 
forms  of  literature. 


JOHN  MASEFIELD'S  NEW  VOLUME 

Philip  the  King,  and  Other  Poems 

BY  JOHN  MASEFIELD 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  TRAGEDY  OF  POMPEY,"  "THE  EVERLASTING  MERCY," 
"THE  DAFFODIL  FIELDS" 

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"Mr.  Masefield's  new  poetical  drama  is  a  piece  of  work  such  as 
only  the  author  of  'Nan'  and  'The  Tragedy  of  Pompey'  could  have 
written,  tense  in  situation  and  impressive  in  its  poetry.  ...  In 
addition  to  this  important  play,  the  volume  contains  some  new  and 
powerful  narrative  poems  of  the  sea — the  men  who  live  on  it  and  their 
ships.  There  are  also  some  shorter  lyrics  as  well  as  an  impressive 
poem  on  the  present  war  in  Europe  which  expresses,  perhaps,  better 
than  anything  yet  written,  the  true  spirit  of  England  in  the  present 
struggle." 


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The  Nigger :  An  American  Play  in  Three  Acts 

BY  EDWARD  SHELDON 

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Price,  $1.25  net;  postage  extra 

One  of  the  most  vivid  and  thrilling  dramas  that  has  appeared 
in  recent  years.  Readers  who  did  not  see  the  play  will  welcome 
this  opportunity  to  become  acquainted  with  a  great  work, 
while  those  who  were  fortunate  enough  to  witness  a  perform- 
ance may  revive  impressions  and  recollections  at  will  in  study 
or  reading  room. 

"The  Nigger"  was  one  of  the  first  plays  to  be  produced  in 
the  New  Theatre,  in  New  York,  at  which  time  the  Boston 
Transcript  said  of  it:  '"The  Nigger'  is  a  swift,  plausible,  cumu- 
lative, and  absorbing  dramatic  narrative  that  holds  interest 
unrelaxed,  and  awakes  answering  emotions.  .  .  The  author 
has  keen  and  fine  imagination  that  has  often  guided  him  truly 
into  insight  in  character.  Is  exciting  in  suspense  and  goading 
in  climax." 

The  Garden  of  Paradise 

BY  EDWARD  SHELDON 
Author  of  "Romance,"  "The  Nigger,"  etc. 

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Taking  Hans  Christian  Andersen's  fairy  tale  The  Little  Mer- 
maid as  his  basis,  Mr.  Sheldon  tells  with  a  great  deal  of  charm 
the  story  of  the  youngest  daughter  of  the  sea-king,  who  stakes 
everything  on  winning  the  love  of  a  mortal  so  that  thereby 
she  may  share  his  immortal  soul  and  one  day  enter  into  the 
infinite  garden  of  paradise.  That  Mr.  Sheldon  knows  how  to 
write  drama  his  previous  contributions  to  the  stage  have 
proved  beyond  a  doubt,  and  while  the  present  work  is  slightly 
different  in  character  from  its  predecessors  it  reveals  the  same 
sure  touch,  the  same  understanding  of  the  fundamentals  of 
dramatic  technique,  and  in  addition  a  poetic  quality  of  no 
mean  order. 


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Romance:    A  Play 


By  EDWARD  SHELDON 
AUTHOR  OF  "THE  NIGGER,"  ETC. 

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Mr.  Sheldon  can  be  relied  upon  to  provide  drama  that  is  not  only 
good  from  a  technical  standpoint,  but  unusual  in  subject-matter. 
"The  Nigger,"  which  proved  to  be  one  of  the  sensations  of  the  New 
Theatre's  short  career,  is  now  followed  by  "Romance,"  a  play  more 
admirable,  perhaps,  in  its  construction,  and  of  universal  appeal.  As 
a  book  the  story  has  lost  none  of  its  brilliance;  hi  fact,  the  sharpness 
of  its  character  delineation,  the  intensity  and  reality  of  its  plot,  and 
the  lyrical  beauty  of  some  of  its  passages  are,  if  possible,  more  ap- 
parent on  the  printed  page  than  in  the  theatre.  There  is  little  doubt 
that  the  tremendous  success  which  the  drama  made  when  foot-lighted 
is  to  be  duplicated  upon  its  appearance  in  this  form. 

"It  is  full  of  literary  flavor,  delicate  imagination  and  romantic 
truth,  and  it  is  one  of  the  plays  which  go  as  well  in  print  as  they  do 
on  the  stage,  and  vice  versa." — Syracuse  Post  Standard. 

"It  is  unique  in  its  conception,  bringing  in  two  romances  and 
two  entirely  different  periods." — Bookseller,  Newsdealer  and  Stationer. 

"Those  who  have  missed  seeing  one  of  the  most  delightful  plays 
of  recent  years  now  have  an  opportunity  to  familiarize  themselves 
with  the  dainty  sentiment,  clean  humor  and  delightful  romance  from 
whence  the  play  took  its  title." — Boston  Post. 

"An  excellent  reading  play  .  .  .  holds  the  fancy  with  the  same 
tenacity  as  a  story  that  it  did  as  a  swift  moving  scene  upon  the  stage." 
— Chicago  Daily  Tribune. 

"The  play  unites  the  setting  and  costumes  of  a  romantic  comedy 
with  the  deep  emotion  of  a  modern  problem  drama.  Throughout  it 
is  the  work  of  an  artist." — Continent. 

"The  play  is  moving,  dramatic,  appealing.  It  is  good  to  read,  as 
it  has  been  proved  good  to  see." — Duluth  Herald. 


PUBLISHED   BY 

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Van  Zorn:  A  Comedy 

BY  EDWIN  ARLINGTON  ROBINSON 

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"The  setting  is  American  and  the  characters  are  true  to 
the  American  type.  .  .  .  The  second  act  is  drama  in  its 
highest  expression." — San  Francisco  Chronicle. 

"He  has  done  something  unique.  His  comedy  depicts  life 
among  the  artists  in  Manhattan.  It  is  the  first  time  it  has 
been  done  by  one  of  the  initiated." — Brooklyn  Daily  Eagle. 

"'Van  Zorn,'  by  Edwin  Arlington  Robinson,  might  be  called 
a  comedy  of  temperament,  introspection  and  destiny.  It 
tells  an  interesting  story  and  is  stimulative  to  thought." 

— Providence  Journal. 

"An  effective  presentation  of  modern  life  in  New  York 
City,  in  which  a  poet  shows  his  skill  at  prose  playwriting  .  .  . 
he  brings  into  the  American  drama  to-day  a  thing  it  sadly 
lacks,  and  that  is  character." — Boston  Transcript. 

PERCY  MACKAYE'S  NEW  POEMS 

The  Present  Hour 

BY  PERCY  MACKAYE 
Author  of  "The  Scarecrow,"  "Sappho  and  Phaon,"  etc. 

Cloth,  I2mo,  $1.2$  net 

"The  Present  Hour"  is  a  vital  expression  of  America  in 
themes  of  war  and  peace.  The  first  section  (War)  contains  the 
gripping  narrative  poem  "Fight:  The  Tale  of  a  Gunner,"  and 
a  series  of  powerful  poems  dealing  with  the  great  struggle  in 
Europe.  Few  war-poems  of  the  many  published  in  this  coun- 
try and  England  reveal  such  sincerity,  force  and  imagery, 
as  these  of  Mr.  MacKaye.  Among  them  are  "American  Neu- 
trality," "Peace,"  "Wilson,"  "Louvain,"  "Rheims,"  "The 
Muffled  Drums,"  "Magna  Carta,"  "France,"  "A  Prayer  of 
the  Peoples,'*  etc.  The  second  section  (Peace)  includes  his 
widely  read  poems,  "Goethals,"  "Panama  Hymn,"  "School," 
"The  Heart  in  the  Jar,"  and  other  representative  work.  The 
volume  is  an  important  addition  to  Mr.  MacKaye's  long  list 
of  books  and  a  valuable  contribution  to  the  poetry  of  our  tune. 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Publishers         64-66  Fifth  Avenue         New  York 


A  LIST  OF  PLAYS 

Leonid  Andreyev's  Anathema $1.23  net 

Alice  Brown's  Children  of  Earth  (Prize  Play) 1.25  net 

Clyde  Fitch's  The  Climbers ,  75  net 

Girl  with  the  Green  Eyes        i  25  net 

Her  Own  Way !?S  net 

Stubbornness  of  Geraldine •>*  net 

The  Truth |7S  net 

Thomas  Hardy's  The  Dynasts.    3  Parts.    Each 1.50  net 

Hermann  Hagedorn's  Makers  of  Madness i.oonet 

Henry  Arthur  Jones's 

Whitewashing  of  Julia 75  net 

Saints  and  Sinners '. 75  net 

The  Crusaders 75  net 

Michael  and  His  Lost  Angel 75  net 

Jack  London's  Scorn  of  Women 


Theft 


Mackaye's  Jean  D'Arc 

Sappho  and  Phaon 

Fenris  the  Wolf 

Mater 

Canterbury  Pilgrims 

The  Scarecrow 

A  Garland  to  Sylvia 

John  Masefield's  The  Tragedy  of  Pompey 


Philip,  the  King 


William  Vaughn  Moody'3 


The  Faith  Healer 


Stephen  Phillip's  Ulysses  . 
The  Sin  of  David    .     . 


lero 
Pietro  of  Siena 


Phillips  and  Carr.    Faust .     . 
Edward  Sheldon's  The  Nigger 


Romance 

The  Garden  of  Paradise 


Katriaa  Trask's  In  the  Vanguard      .     . 
Rabindranath  Tagore's  The  Post  Office 


Chitra 

The  King  of  the  Dark  Chamber 


Robinson,  Edwin  A.    Van  Zorn  .     .     . 
Sarah  King  Wiley's  Coming  of  Philibert 


Alcestis 


Yeats's  Poems  and  Plays,  Vol.  IT,  Revised  Edition 


Hour  Glass  (and  others) 

The  Green  Helmet  and  Other  Poems 


Yeats  and  Lady  Gregory's  Unicorn  from  the  Stars 
Israel  Zangwill's  The  Melting  Pot.    New  Edition. 


The  War  God 
The  Next  Religion 
Paster  Saints     , 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Publishers         64-66  Fifth  Avenue         New  York 


.  25  net 
.25  net 
25  net 
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,  25  net 
25  net 
25  net 
25  net 
25  net 
25  net 

25  net 
25  net 
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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY,  LOS  ANGELES 

COLLEGE  LIBRARY 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


SepSO  6  < 
Oct  28  6  4 

Nov\3&4. 


RECE  1 

MAIN  LOAN 


ED 

DESK 


NO\Ll6  11164 


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RjLJ'D  COL  Iff. 

APR  4    1957 


Ju!l?'6d 
4UL221968 

Book  Slip-35m-7,'63(D8684s4)4280 


JAN  9    1970 


P.M. 

3!  4!  51  6 


College 
Library 


UCLA-College  Library 

PT2616P25E50 


L  005  701   548  9 


•man 
nous 

y  as  an  allegory  of  lite 
with  an  application  to  mod- 
ern conditions.  1  ^e  trans- 
lator has  done  his  work 
well,  retaining  to  a  remark- 
able degree  the  simplicity 
and  grace  oi:  the  original. 


AutnorizcJ 

By   OAKLE 


m 


